From Jane Fonda’s arrest at the “Fire Drill Friday” protests to the A-list cast of Don’t Look Up, celebrities are the new ‘charismatic megafauna’ of climate change discourse, usurping symbolic exemplars like polar bears and sea turtles. While celebrity activism is often applauded by proponents of climate action, this study broadens our understanding of climate change celebritization by examining an often mentioned, less studied dimension: the backlash against celebrity activism from opponents of climate action. Anti-elitism is a common characteristic of right-wing media, where populist narratives pit a virtuous “people” against a corrupt “elite.” Although celebrities mobilize attention to important causes, they also serve as powerful exemplars of the hypocrisy and excess attributed to an out-of-touch elite (e.g. performing climate activism while living a high carbon footprint lifestyle). Yet little is known about how different types of elites are framed within these narratives, and even less about how gender shapes these portrayals.
In this study, we examine how gender conditions the use of celebrities as symbolic archetypes of climate hypocrisy. Analyzing 3,928 Breitbart News articles published between 2015 and 2023, we find that celebrity hypocrisy is a common theme. We also find that female celebrities are more frequently framed as overly vain or emotional, engaging in performative activism, whereas male celebrities are more often cast as incompetent or politically dangerous. These distinctions reveal how anti-elitist rhetoric reinforces broader gendered judgements while shaping public engagement within the climate change issue space. Additionally, we examine user engagement with these articles using publicly available comments and shares, and find that articles focused on celebrity hypocrisy have higher levels of public engagement, with comments reflecting and amplifying similarly gendered judgments of elite activism. In doing so, this study contributes to research on gendered political coverage, celebrity politics, right-wing media, and the intersection of climate discourse with contemporary forms of populism.
