In 2015 Batman went to Washington when Ben Affleck testified before a Senate subcommittee about the aid organization the founded, the Eastern Congo Initiative. The ECI encourages fair trade coffee farming—with Starbucks as the primary buyer. In Batman Saves the Congo, the authors closely examine Affleck as a case study in celebrity philanthropy, dissecting claims that the presence of pop or Hollywood stars is somehow “disruptive” (in a positive sense). Largely, they find it’s the same old neo-liberal enterprise, pushing corporate sponsorship and privatization as the solution for all problems while tending to tune-out the voices of the people they claim to be helping.
