Vote Common Good - Julia Roberts Reminds Us - Your Vote, Your Choice (2024)

This ad relies heavily on Julia Roberts' voice-over, starting with the line “in the one place in America where women still have a right to choose”.

Two women make eye-contact at the voting booth, and judging by stereotypical baseball cap attire and gruffy looking husbands cheeringly saying “your turn honey”, the ladies are seemingly voting against what they look like they would vote for. With a knowing nod across the divide, two women vote Harris & Walz “in secret”, presumably against their spouses' wishes.

This whole premise rubs me the wrong way. In the national referendum in Sweden about nuclear power, my mother voted and held the opposite position to my father and the whole family knew it - their kitchen table debates were legendary! And they still loved each other. Us non-voting kids even picked sides, I would vote like my father if I had the chance back in 1980, while my brother thought my mother's arguments made more sense.

If you need to actually hide what you are voting for from your significant other, you might want to consider not being married to them. Wives are not children or pets.

“Remember,” Roberts adds as the voice-over “what happens in the booth, stays in the booth.” What kind of booth are we talking about here, Julia? In this land of not being able to communicate with your husband? I'm not going to negate that there are battered spouses out there, but her vote shouldn't be as big of a concern as getting the hell out of that abusive situation should be. If we are only targeting abused people here, I am forever hopeful that this is a small target.

Meanwhile Variety shows off this ad with an image of smiling Julia Roberts wearing the Chopard 100-carat yellow diamond at Cannes Film Festival 2022. Because all the battered spouses really can identify with that, right?

Paid for by Vote Common Good.