There’s nothing like an endangered species listing to engender a sense of urgency. That was the case for US actor Rosario Dawson and a host of Australian celebrities who have lent their talents to the Wilderness Society’s #saveugly campaign to draw attention to Australia’s less charismatic animals under threat.
“Our star turtle, our Mary river turtle, was on the brink of becoming endangered and she became endangered while we were shooting,” says Dawson, speaking from Los Angeles as the campaign launched last week.
The #saveugly video is charming and funny, with Dawson dancing around dressed as the Ethmia clytodoxa moth. The turtle is voiced by Cate Blanchett and the ghost shark by Joel Edgerton.
But the campaign message is important: all wildlife has a role to play in a balanced ecosystem. “We can just focus on the things that are comfortable or the things that are easy or the things that get the most attention,” says Dawson. “The ugly truth is that if we ignore any of the different parts of this whole system, it’s all going to collapse.”
The actor is known for her activism as much as her roles in films such as Sin City, Seven Pounds and Men in Black II, and TV shows such as Luke Cage and Jane the Virgin. She has been involved in conservation, LGBTQ and domestic violence campaigns, and in 2016 she was arrested for taking part in pro-democracy demonstrations in Washington DC.
Activism has been part of her life since she was young. She grew up on New York’s lower east side in the 80s, at a time when AIDS, the crack and heroin epidemic and the homelessness crisis were all hitting hard. “It’s the intersectionality between all of these issues that has always been really apparent to me.”
And she doesn’t hold back on the child detentions happening on the US/Mexican border. “It’s horrifying,” she says. “I think that we’re seeing a strategy to really divide people and keep people in a consistent space of despair and reaction mode.”
Yet despite the countless issues demanding attention, Dawson is hopeful that campaigns like this can have a wider impact thanks to technology. “Something like this going viral can really spread this message to a lot of people who might not be interested in the [Wilderness Society] especially because there is so much going on.”
She has always tried to blend creativity with her activism. “I’m not afraid to get my jazz hands on and be like, hey, look at this, this is important, just as much as the next film I have coming out. They all need to be amplified, all these different parts. They are all stories that are important to me as a storyteller.”
And it helps to keep it light. “So many of the organisers and activists that I grew up with, they really suffered so much by martyring themselves for these different causes and not putting in any breaks, not having enough access to healing and humour and the life vitality that you need to do this work.”
Younger actor activists like Yara Shahidi, who campaigns on US voter turnout programme Eighteen x 18, have the right idea, says Dawson. “It’s really refreshing to see this new young generation that’s coming up that’s really active and very serious about making an impact.”
Dawson demurs when asked about her on-screen future with Luke Cage, the Netflix Marvel TV franchise that she has been part of in various incarnations for the past few years. Earlier this year she hinted that she might be finishing up, causing a ripple of concern among fans. “I don’t know,” she says now. “I’ve been on five different shows so you never know what will happen down the road.”
For now, she hopes to encourage more people to get engaged. She was disheartened by the low turnout at the recent Californian primary elections, with only 35 per cent turning out to vote: “People are marching and tweeting and posting and they are doing all this different stuff but they also really need to vote.”
Don’t miss it
Season 2 of Luke Cage is now streaming on Netflix.
