The Dropout breaks the gender ceiling of American entrepreneur-obsessed culture
Elizabeth Holmes — meticulously portrayed by Amanda Seyfried — is not afraid of sharing her obsessions. Listening to Alabama’s “I’m in a Hurry” from a silvered radio cassette, she compulsively starts dancing in front of a Steve Jobs’ poster hanging in her teenage bedroom. At 17, Holmes reveals what will define her ill-fated career as CEO of Theranos, a revolutionary-gone-fraudulent blood-testing startup: She wants to become the 21st-century version of Apple’s founder.
The first episode of The Dropout, Elizabeth Meriwether’s miniseries about Holmes’ entrepreneurial deception, digs in her early years, and we learn about her affluent upbringing in Houston, her life-changing exchange trip to Beijing and her shortened experience at Stanford, where she dropped out in 2004. Jobs’ presence looms large in Holmes’ Palo Alto, from her fixation with succeeding young — “I want to be a billionaire,” she says — to her appropriation of his signature black turtleneck.
Her cult-like reverence is part of a broader popular fetish for deep-pocketed entrepreneurs, secular icons of a capitalist society. Elon Musk is currently the ninth most followed person on Twitter, ahead of Kim Kardashian or Selena Gomez, and his relationship with Grimes is still making headlines. Countless biopics, series and documentaries recount the tales of these all-American heroes, from David Fincher’s 2010 The Social Network, about Meta’s deadpan Mark Zuckerberg to Brian Koppelman and David Levien’s 2022 Super Pumped about Uber’s scandal-driven co-founder.
Besides triggering magazine articles of debatable fashion choices — when did billionaires decide to wear “heart-shaped gradient lens sunglasses”? — this entrepreneur-obsessed culture has profound political implications. In 2016, Donald Trump became the most relevant businessman-turned-pop icon-turned-politician when he was elected president by an Electoral College victory. “I think I’ve seen him really successful as a businessman, so I’d like to see how he’d be as a leader of the United States,” said Taylar Martin, 19, to the BBC during the Election season.
Despite the rising polarization, the love for these rich individuals has a bipartisan appeal. In 2020, many Democrats believed that the best antidote to counter Trump’s $2.5 billion fortune was Michael Bloomberg’s $55 billion net worth or Tom Steyer’s $1.6 billion. In the end, modesty prevailed, and the Democratic candidate — and future president — Joe Biden achieved his party’s nomination with a message focused on working families supported by his $8 million funds.
While these entrepreneurs share more than six zeroes on their bank accounts, they all have something else in common: their gender. “So, you’re America’s youngest female self-made billionaire,” a journalist tells to Holmes at the beginning of the episode, who smirks awkwardly. She’s also one of the few wealthy businesswomen with a broader cultural appeal. In 2015, when Forbes released its new America’s 50 Richest Self-Made Women list, only three names out of the top 15 were household celebrities: Holmes (ranked at the top,) Oprah Winfrey and Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate in the 2010 California gubernatorial election.
Sheryl Sandberg, META’s COO and Forbes 2021 15th richest self-made woman, once wrote that “In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.” There’s still a long way to go until businesswomen finally bridge the gender gap to just become cultural icons, but The Dropout helps to shine some light on one of its most popular references.
Meriwether’s production shows that there’s a general interest to expand the gender barriers of this entrepreneurial-driven culture to include more diverse voices, even if they finally end up scamming the whole country. America’s own brand of capitalist feminism is here, ready to inspire a new generation of fame-seeking wannabe billionaires. Fake it till you make it, but with a #Girlboss shirt.
