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Beyond hot pink and bejeweled outfits, they showcase a deeper desire for community and collective joy.
The “epic trifecta” of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour, and Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour (all raking in millions of dollars) are taking over social media—having grown adult women reliving their youth in a “Tween Girl Summer.”
But the enthusiasm and participation are no less among actual young people.
Both my 18-year-old son and my 16-year-old daughter—despite never having played with Barbies as children and being on the younger end of the age spectrum for Taylor Swift fans—are all in.
There’s a cultural conversation here about the “spending power of women” and the “female dollar,” and there’s plenty to be said for this: Barbie, Swift, and Beyoncé are enormous capital successes.
Barbie and Swift’s Eras Tour in particular open up dialogue about what Michelle Goldberg at The New York Times calls “entertainment that channels female angst,” awakening a “seismic shift for women” in “helping women reclaim girlhood without rescinding power.”
These cultural artifacts draw on the ambiguities of the female experience, celebrating the feminine while honestly addressing the difficulties of being a woman in a male-oriented world. And certainly, these events are occasions for women to enjoy this together.
For me, though, it’s the “together” more than the dollars, and the hope more than the “angst,” that I notice when I try to see this summer through my children’s eyes.
The pandemic interrupted my kids’ lives at a crucial developmental point. For them, there’s almost no “before” the pandemic in their ...
from Christianity Today Magazine
Umn ministry
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