In the weeks leading up to the 2024 election, pop stars have come under fire for being politically outspoken. On the other hand, some have criticized them for not speaking out quickly or strongly enough.
Beyoncé, whose song “Freedom” is being used as Kamala Harris’s campaign anthem, faced criticism for endorsing Harris at an Oct. 25 rally without performing. Donald Trump declared “I hate Taylor Swift” after the singer endorsed Harris in a Sept. 10 Instagram post. Chappell Roan came under fire for announcing she’d vote for Harris without endorsing her, saying there are “problems on both sides.”
Stacey Abrams, a Democratic politician and activist, told Yahoo Entertainment that she finds the argument that pop stars should stick to music “extraordinarily reductive.”
“Women live whole, complete lives, and part of those lives can be the art that they make, but they don’t cease to be citizens and cease to be people and cease to be our neighbors simply because the art is what we know them for,” Abrams said. “We would never tell a businessperson that you shouldn’t vote because your job is to make money. Why would we tell an artist [they] can’t talk about their lived experience because you’re here to entertain us?”
Abrams and Selena Gomez produced a new documentary Louder: The Soundtrack of Change, now streaming on Max. It shows how female musicians have been involved in the fight for equal rights across generations, from Loretta Lynn’s then controversial song “The Pill,” which praised birth control, to Kathleen Hanna’s riot grrrl feminist anthems and Rhiannon Giddens’s songs that feature the narratives of enslaved people.
In the documentary, Gomez says she realized her “platform meant something” when she was around 16 years old, and a single Latina mom thanked her for giving her daughter someone to look up to.
“I had to find my ways to be a part of [social change] while not having people down my throat saying, ‘What do you know?’” she said. “In 2020, I felt like I should get politically involved. It was around election year, and I remember I wanted to give my platform to other people, and I ended up interviewing [Abrams].”
Abrams, who ran for governor in Georgia in 2018 and 2022, said the idea for the documentary began with the “shared love” she has with Gomez for the “combination of art and power and activism.” Putting women at the center of the doc was a “natural conversation” for them because they have long been protest leaders.
“This is the first generation of women to lose civil rights since Reconstruction,” Abrams said. “We have this responsibility not only to anchor what this moment means, but to also remind ourselves that we’ve been here. … Women often bear the brunt of oppression, but we’re also the tip of the spear for progress. Protest music is one of the ways we make that happen.”
Kristi Jacobson, the director of Louder, told Yahoo Entertainment that music is an especially effective conduit for change because “we are often experiencing it as a community.”
“You can walk away from that community having had that experience, and a song will live on with you and inspire you and motivate you in ways that the [people] who wrote and performed the song never even imagined.”
Abrams added that a common principle in organizing is that you have to tell a story at least three times before people internalize it.
“Music tells a story again and again. … There is no more effective storyteller than a musician who has to compact a narrative into not only a few minutes but into something that can sear your mind and your soul,” she said. “It has a natural contagion, that if done well, can reach as many people as you need across the speed of sound.”
The film also highlights artists who have been outspoken about politics at concerts. It includes clips of the Chicks publicly criticizing then-President George W. Bush, Megan Thee Stallion leading a chant of “my body, my motherf***ing choice,” Phoebe Bridgers encouraging her audience to yell “f*** the Supreme Court” and Billie Eilish saying “I am sick and tired of old men. … Shut the f*** up about our bodies.”
Several women musicians, including Azealia Banks, M.I.A. and Sexyy Red, have shared their support for Trump, . So far, none have joined him on the campaign trail.
The late singer-activist Nina Simone, an important figure in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, said that it’s an artist’s duty “to reflect the times.” Some of her now famous statements are included in the documentary.
“At this crucial time in our lives, when everything is so desperate, when every day is a matter of survival, I don’t think you can help but be involved,” Simone says in one clip.
How much of an impact pop stars will have on voters remains to be seen, but based on the ongoing conversation that accompanies each pop star statement, it seems self-evident that the political stances of celebrities is having a substantial impact on fans and culture.
Leave a Comment