Alas, I should've known my post on Plastic Feminism would be far from the last time Barbie served as a central talking point of an essay I wrote.
When Oscar nominations recently came out, everyone was shocked -- no, floored, infuriated, livid -- that Margot Robbie was not nominated for Best Actress, nor Greta Gerwig for Best Director. My personal feelings about this are frankly, unsympathetic -- Barbie received plenty of nominations in other categories, the existing Best Actress/Director lists are worthy and comprehensive even without Robbie and Gerwig, and I admittedly thought the film was vapid and underwhelming. And, perhaps more importantly, I don't believe feminism should exist solely (or even primarily) to ensure justice for already successful and respected women. A good parallel would be the 2022 Grammys, when everyone was accusing the Academy of sexism for "snubbing" Beyonce for Album of the Year. As good as Renaissance was, Beyonce is one of the most decorated Grammy artists of all time. She doesn't need the full weight of the feminist movement behind her for this one, largely inconsequential award. And neither do Margot or Greta.
Regardless, what fascinated me about this headline wasn't the snub, but one particular individual's response to it. Hillary Clinton tweeted: "Greta & Margot, While it can sting to win the box office but not take home the gold, your millions of fans love you. You're both so much more than Kenough. #HillaryBarbie".
Now, I don't really want to think about anyone, especially someone old enough to be my grandmother, using "Kenough" unironically in a tweet. But that aside, this one tweet reveals the inexplicable linkage of Barbie-core feminism to modern political battles; ones that, as we charge into the 2024 election season, have serious implications.
The last time a pop-culture phenomenon was so much a symbol of the current American climate was Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton. Even before its Broadway premiere, Miranda and his cast performed at the White House for Obama and his correspondents, people who would go on to be some of the play's biggest and best advertisers. Miranda spoke about Hamilton as a modern ethical question: highlighting how immigration, gun violence, and foreign involvement are issues today, perhaps just as much as they were issues then. (Coincidentally, these were central talking points of the 2016 election.) The alignment of the Democratic party and Hamilton as a concept might've been accidental, but in 2015 with the rise of Trumpian conservatism, it was powerful.
Hillary Clinton capitalized on that -- she received a strong endorsement from Miranda himself, who changed the lyrics to several of his songs to convince young voters to support her politics while "her opponent is fiddling away on Twitter". To see and support Hamilton as a work of art in 2016 was, in essence, to support the Democratic party in their plight to beat Donald Trump.
And in hindsight, this should have been no surprise. Obama had set the precedent of being a culture-driven president, publishing his favorite books and movies each season. Here was a well-read man who could quote recent Pulitzer winners, here is a play about a Founding Father. It was a Venn Diagram that appealed to the educated electorate, perhaps the biggest target voting bloc for left-leaning candidates.
Tracing this trend even further back: Joe Biden appeared in an episode of Parks and Recreation, Al Gore cameoed on 30 Rock. Rudy Giuliani showed up on Seinfeld, and though never shown, George Stephanopoulos is a central figure for an episode of Friends.
All this to say -- Hillary Clinton is a self-proclaimed Barbie now. She's positioned herself as one of the few who can understand Margot Robbie's and Greta Gerwig's disappointment, given that she, too, was quantifiably more popular than her opponent but still lost. It's an unconventional metaphor, but one that sticks -- as we enter another election season where a vitriolic, dangerous man threatens to ascend the presidency, we're reminded of the last time we let this happen. And it was The Patriarchy's Fault.
And, living in a post-Dobbs world, many feminists have become single-issue voters, putting their full weight behind whomever will provide the most widespread and generous abortion access.
Which means -- this is a framing battle. Nikki Haley is the only hope we have for a female president in 2024, making her Barbie. Yet, Vice President Harris is personally touring states with limited abortion access, speaking on her firsthand experience as a prosecutor in similar cases, as well as from her identity as a woman. Given the Republican's refusal to comment on this abortion-shaped Elephant in any meaningful way, and Biden's unequivocal messaging that Roe was overturned because Trump singlehandedly put enough conservative justices on the Supreme Court to do so, Biden-Harris is Barbie. Trump historically has the support of white suburban mothers, so perhaps in a way, he too is Barbie. Or perhaps, given the way he has been martyrized by his base, a more apt analogy would be Ken -- the character most hardline conservatives sympathized with the most, anyway. As stupid as this sounds, creating these subconscious associations between widely beloved, iconic pieces of culture to a particular political campaign is a surefire way to mobilize and make impassioned young voters, particularly those that are jaded and fatigued from the past eight years.
Which is my way of saying: a lot is on the ballot this year, from resolving Israel-Palestine and Russo-Ukraine tensions to protecting uncensored education in the south. However, I'd almost argue that none of that will really sway any voter, at least not one that is truly currently independent. You know what just might, though? An I'm Just Ken-themed advertisement. An appeal to the new wave of feminism that has been inaugurated by this plastic doll, no matter how problematic that brand of feminism really is.
And that this is true should concern us, because as I've proven above, it's quite easy to become "a Barbie candidate", even if you're decidedly antifeminist -- Hillary Clinton did it, and she's not even running! It's no secret that 2024 will likely be Trump v. Biden, and neither are terribly popular right now. For months now, I've been asking myself: why does this keep happening? It almost seems like any candidate we choose will take us a few steps backwards, against the grain of progressivism that pop culture has strove so hard to achieve in the past four years. Why, as culture becomes more and more left-leaning, do the institutions it represents become increasingly conservative?
And then it hit me: it's because we evaluate politics and media with the same, surface-level sense of removedness that makes it all nothing but a PR ploy. And if you thought Barbie had a good marketing team, just wait till you see what Biden does with a blush suit.
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