For most people, buying a concert ticket or streaming a favorite song doesn’t feel like a political act. You like the music, enjoy the artist and pay for the entertainment. End of story.
Except increasingly, it isn’t.
Pop superstar Olivia Rodrigo provided a striking example when her Daisy Chain Fields festival reportedly raised $10 million for organizations including Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the National Women’s Law Center. Melinda French Gates then matched the funds, bringing the total to an astonishing $20 million.
Rodrigo wasn’t hiding the purpose. The festival combined entertainment with activism, giving organizations an opportunity not only to receive money but also to communicate their causes to a massive audience of predominantly young music fans.
That raises an uncomfortable question Christians don’t often ask:
Where do our entertainment dollars ultimately go?
More Than Just Olivia Rodrigo
It would be easy to dismiss this as one celebrity using her fame for causes she believes in. But Rodrigo is hardly alone.
Ariana Grande donated roughly $250,000 in proceeds from an Atlanta concert to Planned Parenthood during the battle over Georgia’s abortion restrictions. Billie Eilish and Megan Thee Stallion have used prominent festival appearances to support Planned Parenthood’s abortion-rights campaigns, while artists including Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa, John Legend and others have publicly joined campaigns opposing abortion restrictions.
More recently, Planned Parenthood partnered with Florence + the Machine affiliates at multiple U.S. tour stops, providing opportunities to interact directly with concertgoers.
This represents something larger than celebrities occasionally making political statements.
The modern entertainment industry has become one of America’s most powerful engines for cultural activism. Concert stages, festivals, merchandise, social-media accounts and celebrity fan communities can all become vehicles for advancing political and moral causes.
And the people financing that enormous cultural machine are the fans.
Your Entertainment Dollars Have A Destination
Christians understand this principle in other areas.
We carefully consider which ministries we support. Many Christians investigate charities before donating because they want to know how their money will be used. Churches examine organizations before forming partnerships, while parents may scrutinize schools and programs before financially supporting them.
Yet entertainment often receives a cultural exemption.
We may spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on concert tickets, subscriptions, merchandise and entertainment without giving much thought to what the artists and corporations receiving that money actively promote.
This doesn’t mean that purchasing one song makes someone personally responsible for everything an artist believes. Christians live and conduct business in a fallen world, and attempting to create a perfectly ideologically pure economy would be impossible.
But there is a difference between incidental participation in the marketplace and knowingly pouring money, attention and influence into people who openly use those resources to advance causes directly contrary to biblical convictions.
That distinction deserves consideration.
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