Dear Gossips,
Every American presidential election cycle is the most consequential election of our lifetimes, and also a chance for people to insist that celebrity endorsements don’t matter, and yet politicians keep trotting out celebrities who support them. Case in point: last night Kamala Harris held a rally in Michigan hosted by Oprah, and featuring celebrity supporters like Julia Roberts, Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Rock, Ben Stiller, and Meryl Streep. You can watch the event here.
It was essentially a town hall meeting live-streamed online, but it looked and felt more like one of Oprah’s interview specials, and this is what interests me most. No, I don’t think celebrities are influencing how people vote. At best, they might have a platform big enough that sharing resources such as voter registration information could be impactful, as we saw with Taylor Swift. But framing a political town hall meeting as an Oprah Winfrey special? That’s almost…cozy.
There is certainly an element of humanizing a person who WANTS to be the most powerful person in the world (immediately deeply suspicious), and perhaps of keeping the rhetoric from becoming too dry or technical. People talked about abortion, about gun control, these are some of the most contentious and emotional topics in the public sphere, and Oprah’s warm, concerned air keeps these subjects in the realm of the personal, not the political, even as audience members are speaking to a politician. The trick of running a successful campaign for anything is balancing agenda and accessibility, and with Oprah leading the way, this particular event was very much about accessibility.
Whichever way your politics go, it’s possible to appreciate just the production of this event. Even having celebrities pop up on screen via Zoom, rather than in person, is preferable in this case. I generally dislike the post-pandemic reliance on Zoom for celebrity appearances, but this was not the moment for Julia and JLo to take over the room. Amber Thurman’s mother spoke, Hadley Duvall spoke. Between the seriousness of their stories and the intimate atmosphere cultivated by Oprah, A-listers would just distract and change the tone of the room too much. Celebrities belong on stage at the party convention, because that’s like a rock concert. This event was more about creating intimacy between a candidate and potential voters. The celebrities just guarantee headlines. That’s the real value of celebrities in a political race, anyway. Having Meryl Streep on Zoom guarantees this event gets covered not only by traditional media, but also entertainment media. People who might not have known the Michigan rally was happening are suddenly aware of it.
Before Reese Witherspoon and Hello Sunshine could launch a book into the stratosphere, there was the Oprah Book Club. Oprah’s List of Favorite Things is a product guide that can turn businesses into overnight successes. Read this book, buy this candle, like this celebrity—Oprah is one of the original influencers. People don’t really listen to celebrities, but Oprah isn’t just any celebrity. Her seal of approval has meaning. Even though she’s not on our TVs every weekday anymore, she still has the ability to build rapport with an audience, and to mediate between a guest who wants something, and the audience they want it from, a skill which is now making her prominent in politics. From daytime TV to primetime politics, Aaron Sorkin couldn’t script it better.
Live long and gossip,
Sarah