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Celebrities use fame to promote positivity, other causes by | Hannah Corn
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s she relaxed in her room, junior Chelsie Haettich listened to Taylor Swift’s newest album. As much as Haettich enjoyed Swift’s old style of music, she enjoys the new sound of the 1989 album even more. “I have always admired Taylor Swift. She writes the best music for teenage girls to relate to,” Haettich said. “Swift’s new album is incredibly positive and upbeat. She used to write about break-ups and raw emotions, but her new songs are all about the aftermath. She writes about getting over it all and moving on. I think that gives girls a whole new meaning of hope and confidence.” Swift’s recent decision to focus on pop music was not surprising to her adolescent audience. Her newest album, 1989, has recently topped the charts with songs such as “Shake It Off,” “Blank Space” and “Welcome to New York.” This album features a variety of songs all focused on promoting positivity. “I have a few artists in the late ’80s who I think made the most incredible, bold, risky decisions as far as pop music goes,” Swift said in a recent interview with Billboard magazine. “They were really ahead of their time, like Annie Lennox and what Madonna was doing in the late ’80s. ‘Like a Prayer’ is legitimately one of the greatest pop songs of all time.” According to the media, Swift, is not the only celebrity promoting positivity. Jennifer Lawrence is a prominent role model for young adults around the world. Lawrence has starred in The Hunger Games, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook and X-Men: Days of Future Past. “I’m never going to starve myself for a part. I don’t want little girls to be like, ‘Oh, I want to look like Katniss, so I’m going to skip dinner.’ That’s something I was really
conscious of during training when you’re trying to get your body to look exactly right,” Lawrence said recently in an interview with Elle magazine. “I was trying to get my body to look fit and strong, not thin and underfed.” Lawrence is a prime role model for her impressionable audience, according to the Huffington Post. As an actress, Lawrence is often bullied by Hollywood for her appearance, but she refuses to lose weight for a role. She accentuates the fact that she is happy with her body and encourages others to feel the same way. While filming the first Hunger Games installment, Lawrence fought to convince the producers to allow a more curvy look for Katniss. The producers wanted Katniss to be a stick-thin, underweight character that portrayed the living conditions of District 12. “When we were doing the first movie, it was a big discussion because it’s called The Hunger Games. She’s from District 12, she’s obviously underfed, so she would be incredibly thin. But I just kept saying, ‘We have the ability to control this image that young girls are going to be seeing,’” Lawrence said in an interview with BBC. “Girls see enough of this body that we can’t imitate, that we’ll never be able to obtain these unrealistic expectations, and this is going to be their hero, and we have control over that.” Lawrence has proved to be a role model to students at West as well. “Jennifer Lawrence is a hero to me. I was diagnosed with anorexia, body dysmorphia and depression. When I see other celebrities, it makes me feel bad because they’re so skinny,” a sophomore who asked to remain anonymous said. “It’s different when I see Jennifer Lawrence, though, because everyone loves her for her personality. They don’t care what she looks like. She’s funny, and that’s why people love her.”
NBA star Lebron James recently decided to take a stand against the killing of Eric Garner, an AfricanAmerican man put into a chokehold for selling untaxed, or “loose” cigarettes on a New York street corner. Garner was choked to death while yelling the words “I can’t breathe.” Video evidence has shown that five white police officers were responsible for the death of Garner. To show his support, James wore a T-shirt that read “I Can’t Breathe” in honor of Garner and his family as he warmed up for the basketball game between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Brooklyn Nets. “It was a message to the family. That I’m sorry for their loss, sorry to his wife. That’s what it’s about.” James said in an interview after the game. “I think everybody else gets caught up in everything else besides who’s really feeling it, and that’s the family. That’s what it’s about.” Meghan Trainor also made news by standing up for what she believes in. Her hit single “All About That Bass” has received attention from many young adults. The song discusses body image and the effects on the younger generation. The lyrics “We see them magazines workin’ that Photoshop. We know that s--- ain’t real, come on now make it stop” discusses diminishing the use of Photoshop in magazine images. Five offensive players from the St. Louis Rams recently walked out of the locker room before a game against the Oakland Raiders with their hands above their heads in the “Hands up, don’t shoot” position to protest the shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager, by a white police officer, Darren Wilson. “We kind of came collectively together and decided we wanted to do something,” Jared Cook told ESPN. “We haven’t been able to go down to Ferguson to do anything because we have been busy.”
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