Hillary Clinton’s Barbie Oscars snub post reminds us why politicians should stay in their lane

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In the hours after the Oscar nominations had been introduced on Tuesday, dissent appeared to swell just like the onset of a monsoon. Barbie – the £1.1bn-grossing Mattel toy adaptation directed by Greta Gerwig – had been snubbed! At least, that’s what most of the movie’s followers – and a number of the stars – had been suggesting, after Barbie didn’t benefit nominations in the Best Director and Best Actress classes, for Gerwig and Margot Robbie respectively. Never one to let pop tradition soundbite go unaired, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton took to social media to concoct a private analogy. “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,” she wrote, signing off the tweet with the hashtag “HillaryBarbie”.

Now, even when we depart apart the factual spuriousness (each Gerwig and Robbie had been in reality each nominated for Oscars, in the Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture classes respectively), it’s nonetheless laborious to learn Clinton’s message and do something however giddily cringe. This is, in spite of everything, the identical lady who infamously urged voters to “Pokémon Go to the polls”; there’s one thing about Clinton’s efforts to seem like a standard, pop culture-consuming human that rattles with disingenuity. But the previous First Lady can take some solace in the information that she’s not alone. The reality is, there’s nothing extra ruinous for a bit of artwork’s cultural cache than the endorsement of a politician.

It’s a phenomenon that transcends social gathering traces and beliefs. Think of David Cameron professing his love of The Smiths, which prompted guitarist Johnny Marr to “forbid” him from liking the band’s music. Or Matt Hancock claiming to be a fan of grime artist Skepta whereas being unable to call a single one in all his tracks. Or the myriad clunky popular culture references Sir Keir Starmer sprinkles all through his PMQs. (An eye-roll-inducing joke about Line of Duty stays a specific nadir.) Some artists are, after all, too large to be introduced down by a mere podium prowler. Taylor Swift wouldn’t have batted an eye fixed when Rishi Sunak outed himself as a Swiftie final 12 months. (Though Swift is insulated by her mainstream ubiquity – there may be nothing remotely edgy or “underground” about her model that could possibly be tarnished with the approval of authority.)

Sometimes, the boundary between politics and leisure turns into much more blurred: reducing out the center man, elected officers discover a extra direct technique to enchantment to our viewing habits. Joe Biden made a stiff, insipid cameo on the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. Hillary Clinton had a wretched and obsequious look in Broad City, flattening the buzzy sitcom’s subversive fame in a single day. Go again additional, and also you’ve bought everybody from Tony Blair (The Simpsons) to Nancy Reagan (Diff’lease Strokes) to Rudy Giuliani (Seinfeld) creaking their means by sitcom visitor spots. (Al Gore’s temporary activate 30 Rock is a hilarious exception.)

One of the few politicians to even semi-successfully stroll the road of “pop culture appreciator” is Barack Obama, whose fame for being well-read and authentically cultured makes him an oddity among the many pod folks of the federal government sphere. His yearly best-of lists (books/movies/music) are often a smorgasbord of the middlebrow, however do attest to a broad and zeitgeist-conscious enthusiasm for the humanities.

He’s not exempt from criticism, nonetheless: conspiracy theories abound as as to if his picks are in reality chosen by staffers, with a cautious eye in the direction of charming specific voter demographics. Obama’s profitable manufacturing cope with Netflix has additionally tarnished a number of the spirit of the endeavour. Last 12 months’s end-of-year record started with three films he produced: Rustin, Leave the World Behind and American Symphony. Meanwhile, a cynic would possibly query the omission of Killers of the Flower Moon – precisely the sort of muscular, clever, and socially acutely aware movie that he has exalted in the previous – which simply occurred to be launched by Apple TV+, one in all Netflix’s predominant rivals.

Like oil and water, or nuts and gum, politicians and popular culture merely don’t combine properly. If Clinton actually needed to help Barbie, she’d have in all probability been higher off sending an endorsement to a number of the film’s rivals. (Though #HillaryOppenheimer appears like a can of implicational worms.) It’s nice for politicians to get pleasure from a movie, and nice, after all, for them to speak about this. But as a rule, you get the sensation they’re simply making an attempt to attain factors. As a Barbie fan like Clinton would possibly say: it’s merely not good Kenough.