Do you have Barbra Streisand fatigue yet? I don’t—how could you ever, really?—and neither does the world! Her latest album: Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway, came in at #1 on the Billboard charts this week, despite worries that Streisand’s fan base might not be—how shall I say this?—up on the all the latest streaming technologies or iPhone apps or remember how to turn on the laptop their son bought them unless they have their grandchildren for the weekend. (In 2014 Billboard began to add streams and downloads to their formula.)
Streisand’s new album, which includes a duet of “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better” with actress Melissa McCarthy, sold 148,000 copies, in the first week alone. Streisand is back on top, baby. That is, if she ever went away in the first place: she may just be the most enduring star to have ever lived. (During their duet, Barbra reminds McCarthy how to pronounce her name; other collaborations include Anne Hathaway, Daisy Ridley, Patrick Wilson, Hugh Jackman, Alec Baldwin, Chris Pine, Antonio Banderas, Jamie Foxx, and Seth MacFarlane.)
Frankly, I feel like I’ve done nothing lately but write about her comings and goings and the Streisand industrial-complex for the last the six months. The books. The tribute plays. The concert banter. I listened to her Back in Brooklyn album (recorded live at the Barclay’s Center in 2013, and touted as her “homecoming”) on the way to work yesterday morning and started crying like a child for no reason. Verklempt is more than a just a word you use to make fun of your relatives. It’s a real thing, and it knows know no age limit.
Which is exactly my point. The idea that Barbra’s Streisand’s album—an album from a woman who has had a #1 hit record in every decade since the 1960s and a career that has spanned five decades—would underperform due to her lack of appeal to “the kids” springs from the same kind of sexist, ageist, and misogynist thinking that automatically assumes nothing a woman of a certain age (cough, cough, Hillary Clinton) says or does could have relevance to the kids. And this is completely wrong.
I’m not going to tell you exactly how old I am because that’s none of your damn business, but let’s say I’m young enough to be able to successfully open an email attachment every single time I attempt to do so, and the first person I ever voted for in a Presidential election won the popular vote but somehow did not take office due to a fiat by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. And I love Barbra Streisand. So do all our 24-year-old office assistants, and every single teenager who follows me on Twitter, and my 2-month-old nephews. Some people cross all boundaries.
So yeah, maybe the love of Streisand was enough for the Linda Richmans of the world to figure out how to finally use their iPads. Or maybe, just maybe, her appeal is somewhat broader than the experts would have you think. As for me, Streisand’s success allowed me a tiny sense of relief, far greater than any poll has. After all, a world that had a 74-year-old woman at the top of the Billboard chart might just be one that is willing to put a 68-year-old woman in the White House.
Rachel Shukert is the author of the memoirs Have You No Shame? and Everything Is Going To Be Great,and the novel Starstruck. She is the creator of the Netflix show The Baby-Sitters Club, and a writer on such series as GLOW and Supergirl. Her Twitter feed is @rachelshukert.
