another overview of recent Taylor Swift debate
Well: read Jonathan’s post and then Sady’s post. You’ll see this distinction precisely. Jonathan talks about the detail of Swift’s content, the things the songs mean if you actually care about them and hear them in the context of caring about Swift’s music. Sady talks about Swift as a cultural phenomenon and a business concern, talking about her wardrobe, her look, the plots of her videos, her choice of movie roles, the air of wholesome-idealized-sweet-loyal-princess that’s developed around her. Neither of these is necessarily a “better” thing to talk about, or the “wrong” thing to talk about! But they’re obviously incredibly different things, and it’s hard not to point out that one of them consists of things Taylor Swift actually does (like writing lyrics and singing songs) and the other consists in large part of other people’s decisions and perceptions. A lot of the most pointed criticisms of Swift go out of their way to ignore Swift’s own voice, which is a little weird.
Here’s the thing: it’s not so much that the two camps are talking about different aspects of Taylor Swift as it is that music critics are talking about Taylor Swift in particular and cultural critics are talking about Taylor Swift as an exemplar of more widespread issues. Alex (and, one gets the sense, Nitsuh) sees this as a bad thing, but of course he would - he’s a music critic! Sady’s writing can be, um, frustrating at times because she does this relentlessly, but it’s what she does, I guess, and while I would like her (and others) to be perhaps a bit more generous in their understanding of cultural products that have to speak to multiple audiences, there’s a strain of feminism that is all about reading systematic problems into individual instances, so it’s probably going to endure. So arguing about this in terms of feminism seems, um, unproductive, I think. There are good feminist cases to be made both for and against Taylor Swift, and something about the word “feminism” makes people get a lot more self-righteous than they would otherwise, so it becomes this strange all or nothing situation. Surely Taylor Swift is not entirely a good or a bad feminist, right? So hey, where in the middle does that land? Her songs are Good, but the images that have allowed her to become famous (and which she is, wittingly or not, perpetuating, though so what?) are Bad. Her ability to play with that image and bring a sense of truth to it that can otherwise be lacking is Good, but the superficial image projected by her videos - which is all the meaning most people are going to get! - is Bad. In asking how does that average out, I’m really asking: how do you average that out?
And so I guess I’d like to see people talk about her less as a person with agency and more as an experience for the people who listen to and watch her. That’s the opposite of what Nitsuh and folks want, I know, but I don’t think anything we say or do is going to have any particular effect on Ms. Swift, making our treatment of her personhood kinda moot. So let’s talk about us, right? And let’s talk about how our experiences might differ from others’ and what that might mean. Or let’s talk about what other people’s opposition to/support of her might mean! Fewer absolutes! More ambiguity! Personally located criticism! That would let us explain where we’re coming from without universalizing our experiences, and might help other people see how Swiftness is more meaningful within the context of other images of women than she is as a secret exception to that image. Or we might make the case that given that there are so many unambiguously bad images of women out there, maybe the Swiftness’ playful manipulation offers the best alternative that we can have in the current cultural moment. And what does that mean? And why do we think that? Etc. etc. Or not! Yelling is fun too.
