Barbra Streisand is invoked across three episodes of The Bob Zadek Show as an example rather than as a topic. In each case she serves an argument about something else: the politics of network television, the limits of the First Amendment, and the unintended consequences of trying to suppress a story.
Hollywood and the politics of television
In an episode on Hollywood as a source of political messaging, Ben Shapiro used Streisand as a measure of how left-wing a television character’s politics could be. Discussing Roseanne, he described the title character as rude to her husband and children and leftist on every issue, and said her politics were the same as Barbra Streisand’s. From that, Shapiro said, came a perception that a whole group of viewers like Roseanne Barr existed and were waiting to be tapped into, which he called basically false. Hollywood: Obama’s Ministry of Propaganda (2011)
The Streisand comparison sits inside a broader argument Shapiro made about television’s effect on perception. He cited a Gallup poll from about two months before the broadcast showing that 34% of Americans thought at least one in four Americans was gay, and that 78% thought at least 10% of the population was gay, against statistics he called mildly reliable putting the number between 2 and 5%. His explanation was that network television portrays gay characters on every show, generally as a fun sidekick or, as in Glee, the hero. He extended the point to portrayals of government growth and of business people as corrupt. Hollywood: Obama’s Ministry of Propaganda (2011)
Bob Zadek framed the segment by asking whether viewers who grew up on television in the 1970s had been fed a subtle but powerful message promoting left-wing values, and whether it had crept into most of network television. Shapiro dated the shift to 1970 and described television as designed to manipulate emotion, with writers who know how to make audiences spend more time with characters than with their own families. Hollywood: Obama’s Ministry of Propaganda (2011)
Free speech and private boycotts
In an episode on universities and the First Amendment, Bob Zadek raised Streisand as an example of a public figure who complains that her movies are picketed and avoided, or her records not bought, because of what she thinks, and who says that violates her free speech rights. Zadek’s point was that it does not: the guarantee of free speech in the Constitution protects only against government denial of speech rights. He noted the spelling of her name, saying Streisand without an “a” in it. Is Your Alma Mater a Soviet Gulag? (2011)
Zadek extended the point to say there is no constitutional right to free speech on campus, in the workplace or in the movie theater, and that because the right is limited to protection from government, organizations like Harvey Silverglate’s fill the void for students who would otherwise lack protection at law. Is Your Alma Mater a Soviet Gulag? (2011)
Silverglate amended the account rather than disputing it. He said the First Amendment does protect student free speech on public university campuses because they are considered the government for constitutional purposes, and that this is not true on private campuses, where free speech is protected by a principle known as academic freedom that modern liberal arts universities ascribe to. On private campuses, he said, punishing a student for speech breaks a promise and a contract between college and student. Is Your Alma Mater a Soviet Gulag? (2011)
Asked by Zadek whether academic free speech flows to faculty rather than students, Silverglate said it can also flow to students, and that courts have held as much in many cases because college and university handbooks frequently state that the institution respects the free speech of its students. He described that protection as less certain and less strong than the constitutional right at a public university, and said it is ignored by most university administrations, which he put at well over 50%. Is Your Alma Mater a Soviet Gulag? (2011)
The Streisand Effect
The most direct treatment of Streisand comes in an episode on antitrust and Big Tech, where Ryan Young explained the phenomenon named for her. He described her as a famous singer also well known for political activism, especially on behalf of poverty, who was embarrassed when a tabloid ran a photo of a very opulent beachfront home, a multi-million dollar mansion, and who sued to stop the paper from running it. Why Trustbusting Big Tech is a Bad Idea (2020)
Young’s account of the result is that the story would otherwise have died quietly, with a few people having a chuckle at what he called Streisand’s hypocrisy, but that she amplified its reach instead, so more people found out and more laughed at her expense. That backfiring, he said, is called the Streisand Effect in her honor. Why Trustbusting Big Tech is a Bad Idea (2020)
Young applied the concept to Twitter’s decision to mute the Hunter Biden story published by the New York Post. He said Twitter made a mistake, that other outlets including the Wall Street Journal thought the story was not adequately sourced, and that he would have let it through because people are competent to decide for themselves. He called the muting a business decision and not a legal issue, and said the publicity doubled the story’s reach and kept it in the news cycle for days instead of dying quietly. Why Trustbusting Big Tech is a Bad Idea (2020)
Bob Zadek asked Young to explain the term for listeners, and later summarized the legal landscape around the episode’s main subject. He said the antitrust attack on Google and social media more broadly was unsupportable on antitrust grounds, and that the government’s only possible interest lay in Section 230, which he described in a sentence: platforms are free to do what they want from an editorial standpoint, or are not allowed to exercise editorial control over what others publish, if they are just a platform, and once they editorialize a different body of law is triggered with exposure to defamation liability. He said they are deathly afraid of being accused of exercising editorial control and of being like a newspaper deciding what gets printed. Why Trustbusting Big Tech is a Bad Idea (2020)
Across episodes
The three episodes do not develop a single argument about Streisand; each uses her for a different purpose, and the excerpts show no engagement between the treatments. Shapiro’s reference is a political comparison, Zadek’s is a First Amendment illustration, and Young’s is an origin story for a named phenomenon. What changes across them is only the role she plays: a benchmark for a television character’s politics in 2011, a complainant whose free speech claim fails in 2011, and the namesake of an unintended-consequence effect in 2020.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts give no account of Streisand’s career, recordings, films or political activity beyond Young’s description of her activism on behalf of poverty and Zadek’s reference to picketed movies and unbought records. They do not state her birthplace, age, or the outcome of the lawsuit Young describes. No guest or host discusses her as a subject in her own right, and the excerpts contain no interview with her or about her.