Comic Relief is a well-known charity that sends celebrities to Africa.
The stars had to demonstrate how the foundation helps people from the fund raised by the show.
Last year Stacey Doyle, a white star, was appointed by Comic Relief. Stacey shared a picture with a black child from Uganda on her social media account with the caption, “obsessed.”
This led to an intense backlash against Stacey and Comic Relief. People started a campaign against ‘white saviors.’ The frustrated web users said they had seen enough “white people coming to save the black ones.” The stereotype needs to be broken now.
Comic Relief defended Stacey against the intense criticism saying, “she has filmed on much-needed issues that people face daily all over the world.” Comic relief successfully raised the fund of 1.4 billion by appointing celebrities for awareness purposes; still, they were criticized for perpetuating stereotypes like white saviors.
A Guyanese descent, Lammy, said, “The pictures portray the black race as an inferior and pitiful group of people who need the help of white humans for survival.”
Stacey also replied to the critics by asking a genuine question: “Does her having white skin an issue?” She said she only signed the project seeing how the funds are saving lives and those, who found her being a ‘white star’ problematic, can themself step out to raise awareness.
“It has been 35 years that comic relief is raising funds to address the issues which need attention; we have grown and evolved a lot over the past years, our supporters need to show some flexibility as well”, said Sir Lenny
Lenny Henry, the co-founder of comic relief, further said, “African community doesn’t want us to share their stories. What they want is a partnership.”
Comic relief has decided to promote local talent now. The organization tends to provide opportunities to African filmmakers rather than the people from the west. They will try to address broader narratives like forced marriages and mental health.
Comic relief has a fundraising campaign in the near future named “Red nose day 2021”. According to Sir Henry, they will be collaborating with black and brown filmmakers from now onwards.