Perhaps one of the worst cultural changes in recent years has been the celebritization of politics, with politicians becoming celebrities and celebrities becoming even more political.
After all, who doesn’t love it when actors, musicians, and artists channel the caricatures in Team America and lecture us on how the world really ought to work?
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Dua Lipa is not only a perfect example of this political celebrity but, thanks to her foray into the world of free speech, a perfect example of its hypocrisy and ignorance.
Apparently bored of condemning “Israeli genocide” and accusing the Israeli military of “burning children alive” after dating the son of virulent anti-Semite Mohamed Hadid, Dua Lipa is now being celebrated for opening her “Manifesto Library” as a “shrine” to banned books in Portugal’s historic Livraria Lello Bookshop.
“This library is a shrine to books that have disappeared, to authors whose courage unmasks structures of power and control and to readers who refuse to be told what book they’re allowed,” Lipa wrote on Instagram, with the library adding that her collection “stems from the belief that much more than a story is lost when a book is censored.”
“Reading the world brings us closer — but sadly, not everyone is in favor of that,” Lipa announced in a press release. “Here you will find one hundred books that ask questions, or have been questioned. Some have been banned by school districts for themes of race or sexuality. Others, written for LGBTQIA+ readers, have been restricted from display. In some cases, the author has paid for their words with their life.”
Except none of this is brave or courageous. Instead, it’s more of the same celebrity virtue-signaling in which millionaires masquerade as culture warriors from within the safety of their own cultural bubbles.
First off, none of these books are actually censored. Do you know how I know that? You can buy them on Amazon right now.
Second, is Dua Lipa seriously pushing the envelope against censorship by promoting a bunch of left-wing books on race or sexuality that her audience already adores?
Third, and most notably, what do you notice when you actually flick through her list of “censored” books? Yes, there are some undeniably controversial inclusions that were the focus of censorship or violence — including Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and Alexei Navalny’s Patriot — and yes, there are also some frankly silly inclusions, such as pseudo-intellectual screeds like Trevor Noah’s Born A Crime, Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynold’s Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You. There’s even teen fiction like Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, which was so censored that it was transformed into a massively successful Hollywood series.
What you will notice is a hidden assumption that “censorship” means the same thing for all of the books. It’s as if there is no difference between China and Russia criminalizing anti-regime books and American parents arguing against exposing their elementary school children to Maia Kobabe’s graphic novel Gender Queer, which depicts imagery of oral sex using strap-ons.
FACULTY POLITICAL BIAS IS EVEN MORE WIDESPREAD THAN WE THOUGHT
Are we seriously pretending that the murder of a Russian political opponent is the same as arguing that five-year-olds shouldn’t read Gender Queer, a graphic novel the Los Angeles Times called “the most banned book in America”?
And if Dua Lipa really thinks that we should oppose censorship of all written works regardless of their content, then why is the most infamous censored book of the 20th century — Mein Kampf — not on her list?
Doesn’t Dua Lipa care about free speech?
Ian Haworth is a syndicated columnist. You can find his work on Substack and follow him on X (@ighaworth).