Diablo Valley College student Zhenaleigh Doldol isn’t sure how she’ll vote in her first election in 2024, but she’s inspired by the messages of female empowerment that radiated around her beloved summer movie “Barbie” and the blockbuster global concert tours of Taylor Swift and Beyonce.
“This year has been such a pivotal point for women and women’s rights,” said Doldol, 19, of Pittsburg.
During a break between classes, she and a friend, Christian Ebonia, 20, agreed that “Barbie,” Swift’s Eras tour and Beyonce’s Renaissance concerts have given American women an unexpected focus for their anger since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs ruling ended the constitutional right to abortion: the ballot box.
“That’s the thing with the ‘Barbie’ movie and these two famous women. (They) can influence a lot of younger people in getting out there to vote,” Doldol added.
After “Barbie” opened in July, prominent feminist author Susan Faludi told the New York Times that this ostensibly apolitical comedy about a doll’s existential crisis actually is about “the shock and horror over what happened to us — what happened to women — from 2016 on, with the double whammy of Trump and then Dobbs.”
Since then, local and national political strategists have begun to see the potential in harnessing the personal-is-political “energy” surrounding “Barbie” and the female stars of the summer concert season, even wondering if these events could help determine whether Joe Biden, Donald Trump or scores of other candidates are elected to national and state offices in 2024.
The Dobbs decision could be “a powerful motivator” for women voting in 2024. It’s a particularly salient issue for young women, ages 18 to 29, who were part of a youth surge in voter turnout in the 2022 midterms, said Alberto Medina, who heads communications for Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. After the Dobbs decision, Republicans lost their majority in the Senate, as well as elections on state ballots across the country.
There’s no doubt that abortion rights “resonates with the demographic that liked ‘Barbie’ and are fans of Taylor Swift and Beyonce,” Democratic strategist Chai Komanduri said. “It’s a case where the younger demographic has seen rights being taken away, which has been galvanizing. What they get from ‘Barbie,’ Taylor Swift and Beyonce is the idea of democratic engagement and finding constructive solutions forward to solving problems.”
There’s no denying the cultural power of the Barbie/Taylor/Beyonce trifecta. Swift and Beyonce’s tours pumped some $5.6 billion into the U.S. economy, while “Barbie” earned more than $1.4 billion at the global box office. All three events have dominated national discourse through hit songs, fashions and images of female solidarity and artistry.
Barbiecore also has turned up in the social media messaging of organizations like Emily’s List, whose president, Laphonza Butler, was just sworn in to complete the remainder of late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s term. A pink-clad Gretchen Whitmer, who centered her successful 2022 run for Michigan governor on abortion rights, also tweeted out an image of herself holding a Governor Barbie doll and vowing to always be true to herself.
When I first ran for governor, someone said to me: “Just promise me you’ll show up as you are. Don’t dim yourself because of what other people think and feel, be who *you* are.”
I’ve carried that message with me through all the ups and downs. pic.twitter.com/3jFq0fHqzx
— Governor Gretchen Whitmer (@GovWhitmer) July 21, 2023
It will be hard to avoid more talk about “Barbie,” Swift and Beyonce in the coming months. “Barbie” is expected to compete for Oscars, Swift is re-releasing her “1989” album, and she and Beyonce are putting out concert films that could join “Barbie” in breaking box office records.
This prospect aggravates some conservatives who already saw Beyonce as a polarizing figure because of her endorsement for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and her advocacy for social-justice causes. This summer, conservatives took particular aim against “Barbie” and Swift. The Students for Life of America blasted “Barbie” as pro-abortion and anti-family, while Ben Shapiro wrongly predicted that the “woke” film would bomb at the box office.
More recently, a writer for The Federalist argued that what he described as Swift’s anti-male brand of feminism is a sign of societal decline, even as she solidified her place as perhaps the most popular entertainer on the planet right now. On break from her tour, Swift’s public flirtation with Kansas City Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce created such a frenzy in the entertainment and sports worlds that she helped boost ratings for the NFL, the highest rated pro sport in the country.
Swift has proven her ability to drive voter registration. During the 2018 mid-terms, the former country star spoke out on politics for the first time, endorsing Democrat candidates in her home state of Tennessee. An Instagram post, shared with her then-112 million Instagram followers, is credited with getting more than 100,000 people to register on the site Vote.org.
Five years, and 150 million additional Instagram followers later, Swift encouraged her fans to sign up on Voter Registration Day, Sept 19, bringing in more than 35,000 new registrants to Vote.org, including a 115% increase in 18-year-olds compared to last year.
Santa Clara County supervisor Susan Ellenberg, a longtime Swift fan, was particularly moved by scenes in the singer’s 2020 documentary, “Miss Americana,” when she explained that anger motivated her to speak out, even if it meant losing conservative fans. Swift explained she was “appalled and horrified” by the voting record of pro-Trump Tennessee senate candidate Marsha Blackburn, whom she cast as an enemy of feminism and LGBTQ rights.
While Swift’s chosen senate candidate lost to Blackburn in 2018, “Miss Americana” ends with the singer continuing her activism by recording “Only the Young” as a rallying cry for young voters. Swift also condemned Trump as an aspiring autocrat in 2019 and expressed anger after the Dobbs decision, writing on Twitter, “I’m absolutely terrified that this is where we are.”
To Jean Cohen, executive director of the South Bay Labor Council, women voters are in tune with the Barbiecore message.
“At a time when right-wing politicians continue to push bogus laws taking away women’s rights over their own bodies across most of the country,” she said, “it’s telling that the biggest pop culture icons are strong women who haven’t been afraid to raise their voices about the importance of taking an active role in our democracy.”
