Political tensions are high. Division seems to be everywhere and celebrities are no exception.

For example, in September, thousands of actors and filmmakers signed an open letter calling for a boycott of Israeli film groups over the war in Gaza.

In response, another group of actors and filmmakers signed an open letter rejecting the boycott.

So what's at stake? When celebrities express views many see as divisive? What can they gain? What can they lose? And do their views even actually make a difference anyway?

I asked Tim McLaughlin, a crisis communications strategist, and Amil Niazi, a freelance writer and cultural critic.

To Amil, thank you so much for joining us on the program. How are you doing?

Good, good. Thank you.

There's an attraction with people in terms of wanting celebrities to speak out, and I want to get a better understanding of why. Why do we why do we look to celebrities to speak out whether it's first or when something is happening in the midst of it? Why do we why do we? Why are we drawn to them?

You know, I think as culture has evolved, we want we sort of have built this parasocial relationship with celebrities, influencers. You know, I think we really live in a very influencer-led culture right now where we have a desire for an intimacy and a connection and a very personal connection with our celebrities.

You know, we're used to seeing them on Instagram, talking directly to us on TikTok. There's no longer that divide where, you know, a publicist controlled what a celebrity said and how they reacted, and you sort of only knew them on the press tour.

Now you have access to them 24/7, and they want you to have that access because it it helps build their brand.

But what comes along with that is a desire then, for them to speak about the pressing issues of the day, because it would be weird for them not to. Right.

The problem is that that's not their expertise. It is not really necessarily something that they should speak about. They don't have a connection to it.

And so you're left in this awkward space where if they say the wrong thing, they're vilified. If they say the right thing, then now they are held to a certain standard that they have to maintain.

So it puts celebrities in a very awkward position. And I think that you're going to see more and more sort of, you know, things like Jennifer Lawrence pop up where they really just want to say, I'm done speaking about anything that's not my craft.

All right. Well, this is what you do. So I want a better understanding of should public figures be expected to be experts on topics on issues.

You know, to Amil's point, they're not experts in these subjects. So I think expecting celebrities to have opinions on every issue, every hot button topic that comes up, I just think that's, you know, unfair to the celebrities.

They are experts at their craft, whether it's music, entertainment, art, whatever it is, that's their expertise. So expecting them to be experts in each social issue or politics, it's just an impossible standard to live up to.

And it also sets the precedent. Once you speak out, once you're then expected your fans and your audience is expecting you to chime in to every single conversation.

So I think the the figure then sort of loses their identity as well in that process. Who are they without the advocacy role?

You know, so I often think it's in the celebrities' best interest to not chime into conversations. And most often they have more to risk by doing so.

I'm curious in terms of the pressure that celebrities or influencers might be getting, is it from their following? Is it what they're seeing on social like? I need to get into this conversation.

Yeah. I mean, once you have, you know, your peer kind of do something, then, you know, you feel a certain degree of pressure to, to align with that. And certainly your, your audience and your fan base, you know, we're so engaged and interacted online. It's a two-way conversation now.

So your, your fan base really can say, we expect this of you and the celebrities are going to see that and, and have a, you know, perhaps want to respond to it in order to try and preserve the connection with that, that fan base.

All right. Let's talk about sort of topics. People are were quite comfortable speaking up on Jemmy Kimmel when he was taken off the air.

Canadians and Americans will remember on SNL when, you know, Mike Myers opened his shirt and showed, you know, Canada is not for sale and elbows up.

But there are other conversations that are a bit trickier. Gaza. Why is it that certain topics require require refinement? Rightfully so.

But why are they trickier to handle?

Well, I mean, you can just extrapolate the comfort level of having a conversation about Gaza at work, sometimes even at home amongst your friends. Right?

Everyone has a very often personal connection to it. They are often, you know, ill prepared to speak about the context of this conversation.

And I think that people often have a very visceral reaction to the celebrities take, you know, whether it's Amy Schumer coming out and, you know, her opinion or whether it's Hannah Einbinder at the Emmys saying, you know, go birds free, Palestine, either side is going to electrify the people who care about the issue, whether it's on this side or that side.

So if it's if it's a hot button issue, you know, in any circumstance, then of course the celebrities speaking out about it is going to be a hot button issue as well.

To help peel the curtain back a little bit. What what should a public figure consider before they post or make a statement? Are these is there conversations that you have had with people to be like, okay, let's, let's let's take a moment here. Let's take a breath. What what do we encouraging them to post or not post.

Yeah, absolutely. I think half the battle is having the conversation ahead of time proactively, because clients often come to me in a reactive state. They've posted something online that's usually emotionally driven. And now we have quite a mess to clean up because it wasn't thought out, it wasn't well-planned, and now they're in over their head.

So if we can take a step back, that's kind of the first piece of advice is take a step back. Let's think strategically about this.

And look, I'm not here to tell you one way or the other if you should or you shouldn't do it. But what I'm going to bring you through is a risk assessment, and then you can decide if it's worth it from you, for you.

So we'll get a lay of the landscape. Understand. You know, what's the generally the popular opinion on this topic? Are you with the popular opinion or are we going to be fighting an uphill battle here?

If you have a more unpopular opinion, we're going to look at your audience. Are you going to lose a significant chunk of your fan base? Does your audience expect this of you? Do they even care? Or should you just stay in your lane and then are there financial repercussions?

You know, these celebrities have brand deals. They have, you know, contracts. So does your contract allow you to potentially chime in in this conversation safely? Are you going to risk turning off brands to wanting to work with you because it's a controversial topic.

So once we do that risk assessment, it often opens the client's eyes to say, well, I don't know that I want to put this deal or this gig that I've booked at risk by speaking out.

But sometimes they're closely connected and feel super passionately about the issue. And we can speak out in a, you know, in a more thoughtful way and do it properly.

But I certainly recommend that that risk assessment, I think, is really critical for understanding the landscape.

You talked about Jennifer Lawrence and a lot of these situations. The conversation is fluid. Things are changing depending on where you jump in. It's kind of important. And so actress Jennifer Lawrence recently said she does not want to take away from her craft by speaking up anymore. What's your take on her statement?

I'm sort of divided on something like that. On the one hand, I agree that I don't necessarily want to hear from Jennifer Lawrence on, you know, if Canada should be a sovereign country or.

Stay in your lane, okay.

Stay in your lane and and often the best thing that they can speak about is their craft and how sometimes that naturally intersects with politics or what's happening in the world, but oftentimes it doesn't. So she should just talk about acting.

And to your point, she in that clip, you know, she says, I'm taking on roles that reflect my.

Exactly. She wants her art to speak for her. And I think a lot of creatives feel the same way. And they do want their art to be the thing that, you know, navigates those conversations and you can perceive it however you want. And that's the conversation. That's the debate.

On the other hand, it can come across as cowardly that she doesn't want to risk her brand deals. She doesn't want to risk, you know, Givenchy or Balenciaga or whatever. I don't know what brand deal she has, but when money's on the table, that's when people either show their mettle or they, you know, shirk away from these hard conversations so it can be perceived, I think, as sort of the cowardly decision that you don't you you don't know what to say or you're not brave enough to say it.

And so you're just sort of saying, like, I'm going to say nothing. And, and as, as, you know, from some of these heated conversations we've been having, silence can speak volumes.

I am curious, though, how much influence do they really have? Do they? Does it actually move the conversation outside of, say, a, you know, a tweet thread or an Instagram thread? Is there actual movement on? Sort of.

No, I don't think so. Someone like Miss Rachel, who who keeps it in the conversation, who really this is something that she believes so strongly in and she's willing to risk it all to, to keep these kids at the forefront. Yeah, I think she could. But for the most part, you know, Jennifer Lawrence saying XYZ is not going to have a real tangible impact on the conversation.

No. All right. We're going to talk about Miss Rachel. So let's bring this up. As you mentioned, Miss Rachel, very popular children's educator, entertainer, millions of followers and has a Netflix program as well. She recently posted this. It reads tag celebrities, leaders and politicians who have spoken out about Gaza. Let's thank them and follow them. And then she commented right at the bottom there. We won't forget who was silent and who showed up to. Is there something inherent in this moment in social media that makes praising and shaming effective?

Well, there's sort of my professional answer and then my personal answer. I want to kind of talk about Miss Rachel, though, first, because I think she's one of the few. She's certainly an outlier, in my opinion, but she's one of the few that have done it right. And I think she can be she can dig into this conversation at a deeper level than I think some others.

Because her career started on YouTube. She owns that audience, and she makes a very lucrative career just through her YouTube. The Netflix deals and all of that came later.

So she doesn't rely on that audience. So I think that's the difference for her, and it's clear her passion about it. It's not gimmicky. It's not. She's not feeling this pressure from her audience to say something. It's true and it's from the heart.

And she's connected. The connection to her brand is children. She's led with that. So I think that's what works for her.

As for audiences putting pressure on these celebrities to to speak out or are shaming them if they do or don't? What I'm actually seeing a lot of is, is, is bot farms amplifying some of this engagement.

So so it's become trickier in today's age, you know, this digital era to differentiate what's legitimate criticism and what's being amplified by people with with an agenda.

You know, shaming is ineffective. Shaming may, in the short term provide, you know, some benefit. But over the long term, studies show that shaming is ineffective for behavioural change and and truly convincing someone that their position is is wrong.

So I think, you know, this is a personal opinion, but, you know, the shaming culture to me is just it's gone too far.

So that's on the shame side of things. And as for its impact on celebrities, and if they do or they they don't speak out, we have to better understand that that sentiment, if it's, you know, if it's legitimate, if it's true, and then kind of do that risk assessment that I mentioned.

All right, Amil, same question here.

Yeah. I think it's really tricky because, you know, of everything has said about the legitimacy of who is sort of like putting the pressure on these celebrities. Is it their fans or is it, you know, sort of trolls or, you know, people with nefarious sort of influence?

But I do think that we are stepping out of a shaming culture. I think you're starting to see more and more, if you recall, like during the Black Square era, you know, during the pandemic when there was a lot of pressure on celebrities to post a black square, to sort of let black voices be amplified on social media, it was a kind of an absurd movement.

It proved very quickly to be, you know, a little bit of a joke. Right?

And so it put, put the ones who posted it in a very awkward position and ones who didn't post in a very awkward position, and it wasn't legitimate in the end.

So I think we're coming out of