As much as we like to think our COVID pandemic days are behind us, one of the more lasting implications of the pandemic has been the financial recession. Ongoing supply chain issues and slow recovery have contributed to the recession—but, after the summer, the financial crisis has started to improve. The biggest contributors to this financial recovery have been the work of two women: Greta Gerwig with her movie, Barbie, and Taylor Swift with The Eras Tour.
Greta Gerwig’s movie Barbie brought in more than $1.3 billion in the box office globally, according to NPR. This ranks it among the top 20 highest-grossing movies of all time. Due to the box office sales, brand partnerships, and the new infatuation with the color pink, the Barbie phenomenon led to skyrocketing consumer purchases in most merchandise and entertainment sectors in the US. The movie’s impact on consumer spending injected more money into the American economy. It also increased the demand for consumer goods, which in turn increased employment and thus the spending power of consumers. In this way, the Barbie movie and marketing stimulated American spending so much that it grew the overall size of the economy.
Likewise, according to the BBC, Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour has been so important to the economy that the phrase “Taylor Swift economy” has been coined. The tour itself has grossed more than $1 billion, making it the second highest grossing tour of all time—and it is projected to surpass Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour for the top spot during her second US and international legs. Aside from enormous ticket prices to completely sold-out stadiums every night, The Eras Tour has done more than put consumer money into the economy, like Gerwig’s movie. It has also generated enormous revenue for each host city in which Taylor plays, due to the sale of travel fares, lodging, food, merchandise, and other consumer goods. Each weekend of the tour provided enough funding for the host cities that it can be used for infrastructure and quality of living, after such a long period of recession. Swift’s tour has brought record-breaking hotel occupancy and revenue for a single event in each host city than any events that preceded it. She has contributed millions of dollars of revenue to several state’s gross domestic product (GDP), and is estimated to have already had an economic impact of over $5 billion on the US economy.
The economic implications of Swift’s tour do not stop in the stadiums. The release of her film, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour broke records for the highest grossing ticket presales and first-day ticket sales in the box office. According to CNBC, as of October 22, the film had earned nearly $128 million in box office sales already. Like Gerwig’s Barbie movie, the movie has increased consumer purchases even outside of box office revenue. In this way, not only has Swift’s The Eras Tour itself created the “Taylor Swift economy” phenomenon, but so has her concert film.
Through their contributions to the entertainment industry, Greta Gerwig and Taylor Swift have together been responsible for US economic upturn by stimulating both local and national economies. The two pioneering women are single handedly responsible for leading the US away from the financial crisis. This further proves the fact that women have always played and continue to play a very important role in the US economy.
