One of the most discordant and yet banal things about looking to the US today is how celebrity, its greatest cultural output, largely carries on as normal amid scenes of profound distress. Award ceremonies are televised, bespoke couture is pulled for the red carpet, some new film fills your social media timeline. It feels galling that a country can encompass such a sense of anguish at the same time as such glamour and wonder. And given that we are condemned to witness ICE’s transformation into a lethal, paramilitary force, such an event as the 68th Grammy awards, broadcast last night, feels at once insignificant and more important than ever as all the world watches.
The Grammys saw perhaps the most uninhibited and genuinely furious rebuke of ICE and Donald Trump that we have seen so far from celebrity figures – particularly considering that just last month, the Golden Globes was viewed as having largely ignored politics, save for a few “ICE Out” pins worn by stars including Ariana Grande and Mark Ruffalo. Grammy attendees went further. Billie Eilish followed up her call for celebrities to speak up against ICE, saying that “no one is illegal on stolen land … I feel that we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting, our voices do matter and the people matter.” Perhaps most movingly, considering his stated concern around the mass deportation of Latino people, album of the year winner Bad Bunny said: “ICE out. We’re not savages, we’re not animals, we are humans and we are Americans … the only thing that is more powerful than hate is love.” These came alongside celebrations of immigration from Olivia Dean and Shaboozey.
There is the blunt question of how consequential any kind of celebrity political activism is. Celebrities speaking on mass platforms can, of course, help to normalise a discourse and unveil what is occurring to those whose engagement with the news may only be through culture. Yet it has always been viewed as a limited approach. In 2024, Saturday Night Live mocked the “teeny tiny statement pin” favoured by celebrities on the red carpet, skewering it for evidencing a commitment to saying something while saying as little as possible. But even when the statements are loud and unequivocal, there is still the same chorus: why should any of us care about what celebrities have to say?
Cynicism is warranted, considering how American spectacle has functioned more as a redirection of interest away from atrocity rather than a tool for politicisation: consider the Rafah airstrikes two years ago in Gaza, which occurred as millions of Americans celebrated the Super Bowl, which had run ads from the Israeli government. There is also the fact that celebrity enthusiasm for Kamala Harris – from “Kamala is brat”, to Taylor Swift’s “childless cat lady” post, to Megan Thee Stallion’s rally performance in Atlanta, Georgia – now figures prominently in diagnoses of why the campaign was a complete failure.
Yet in spite of all of this, celebrity voices against ICE feel important. The terror inflicted by ICE is a far more visceral subject than an election campaign. ICE’s expansion has outpaced mechanisms to check its power, making all forms of resistance more urgent. It is not necessarily that anti-ICE activists need Hollywood’s seal of approval. But Trump evidently does – he recognises that art and culture are crucial frontiers in his bid for domination. It is one that will never succeed, no matter how many acolytes he sends to infiltrate the renamed Trump-Kennedy Center, despite his attempts to make an event of Melania’s trashy documentary, and even if he’s managed to win over rapper Nicki Minaj.
Writing on Truth Social after the event, Trump said: “The Grammy Awards are the WORST, virtually unwatchable! CBS is lucky not to have this garbage litter their airwaves any longer”, and added that he would instruct lawyers to sue host Trevor Noah over his joke that “Trump wants Greenland … because Epstein’s island is gone he needs a new one to hang out with Bill Clinton”. He is probably due another tantrum after this Sunday’s Super Bowl half-time show.
Clearly, for the Puerto Rican Bad Bunny or the Nigerian Shaboozey, the tyranny of ICE is deeply personal, and they have a right, like anyone, to make their views known. Indeed, Bad Bunny’s NUEVAYoL is a tribute to the Puerto Rican diaspora in New York City, with the accompanying music video criticising anti-immigrant sentiment. So perhaps it is something of a misnomer to reduce this to “celebrity” activism when these people, really, are speaking as artists. Art has always had a core, contested function in politics. And who wants artists to put up and shut up more than Trump?
Jason Okundaye is an assistant opinion editor at the Guardian
