After hours of breathless speculation, deleted tweets and one very incorrect TMZ report, Beyoncé did not show up at the Democratic National Convention last night. It was a disappointing, if entirely predictable, outcome. But many, many other stars did. Indeed, both the Republican and Democratic conventions worked hard to secure headline-making names to drum up attention, followed hopefully by votes and possibly donations.
But even without Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, it was clear that only one party truly understood the assignment.
Even without Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, it was clear that only one party truly understood the assignment.
At the DNC, Democrats used celebrities across all four days to promote the specific policies of the party, and to connect each celebrity’s brand with their brand. On Thursday night, the convention featured Pink, a singer who has used her music to fight for LGBTQ+ equality long before it became fashionable, and The Chicks, who boldly risked their careers in country music to speak out against right-wing militarism.
Comedian D.L. Hughley, known for his clever commentary on race, took the stage to hilariously call out Trump’s race-baiting politics. Common and John Legend, both known for music that advocates and celebrates the quest for racial justice, took the stage earlier in the week. And Oprah Winfrey, an iconic figure who famously overcame the obstacles of race, class and gender to become a billionaire cultural behemoth, endorsed Harris’ historic quest to do the same. Trailblazing director Spike Lee watched from the crowd as barrier-breaking actresses Eva Longoria, Kerry Washington and Mindy Kaling helped host. And heard throughout was the official campaign song, Beyoncé’s “Freedom,” the rare instance of a singer and song matching the message and meaning of a political campaign.
Contrast this with the strange Republican mélange of Kid Rock, Amber Rose, Russell Brand, reality star Savannah Chrisley, UFC head honcho Dana White and Hulk Hogan that assembled a few short weeks ago in Milwaukee. These celebrities didn’t reinforce any message or create any vibe. They certainly didn’t connect to any policy — in fact they seemed to counteract the actual policies of the reality TV candidate they were allegedly endorsing, leading to such outlandish moments as Amber Rose saying Trump is “all love.” Rose probably should have watched more of actual RNC speakers, who spent much of the convention advocating or bigotry and hate.
The bigger theme of the RNC celebrity choices, if you can call it a theme, was that “Trump is cool.” One could argue this is an actual strategy, based on wooing young male voters. But even then, it’s unclear how widespread the 71-year-old Hulk Hogan’s fan base is anymore. Kid Rock has recently made more headlines for boycotting beer than he has for any particularly artistic endeavor. And Amber Rose is … barely a celebrity.
This isn’t to say that Democrats always get celebrity politics right. As someone who worked on the 2016 Democratic convention, it’s clear to me now that we failed to connect many of the celebrities to any meaningful message or strategy. Katy Perry and Lenny Kravitz performed, and both Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver took to the stage — but it wasn’t always clear why. What were they saying about the campaign Hillary Clinton was waging against Donald Trump? Similarly, when Robert De Niro showed up at Trump’s hush money trial, his appearance seemed like a tabloid distraction. A better strategy would have been to have a pro-choice female celebrity connect Trump’s sexist behavior with his sexist policies and discuss how Trump wants to put the government in our bedroom, while expecting privacy in his.
Why does any of this matter? We can never know for sure, but in the same way that Will Rogers’ everyman persona helped FDR position himself as the champion of ordinary Americans, or the Italian Catholic Frank Sinatra reinforced Irish Catholic JFK’s message of generational change, a good celebrity surrogate can complement, bolster and spread a candidate’s message.
And in the end, the DNC’s parade of celebrities did do a good job of connecting their own stories and star power to Harris’ message of “not going back.” Meanwhile, the celebrities at the RNC tried, and mostly failed, to make Trump look cool again. But to be fair to them, I’m not sure anybody could.
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