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[COLUMN] A Grand Unified Theory of Taylor Swift | by Darren Mooney
🕑 Added 2024-05-06 14:00:12 +0000 UTC
These columns tend to cover film and television, but occasionally it’s worth branching out to take a look at larger pop culture. Two weeks ago, Taylor Swift released her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, and the response to it has been interesting, to say the least. In particular, it has opened up debates about the nature and the purpose of criticism.
When Paste Magazine published a negative review of the album, it did so by crediting the piece to “Paste Staff.” On social media, the magazine explained that this was because the reviewer of Swift’s previous album, Lover, received “threats of violence.” Anything but unqualified praise for Swift was heresy. While conceding critics were “within their rights” to criticize the album, The New Yorker argued that Swift’s work should exist beyond criticism.
This phenomenon is not unique to Swift as an artist. Celebrities have become increasingly hostile to any sort of criticism. Fans of Nicki Minaj have a long history of “doxxing” critics, with Minaj herself attacking YouTube’s head of music Lyor Cohen over the reaction to “Big Foot.” Hannah Ewens, feature editor at the British edition of Rolling Stone, acknowledges that some critics pass on reviewing major releases “because they don’t have the mental and emotional capacity to bother with the backlash.”
This trend isn’t even confined to the music industry, although it is certainly more pronounced there. In 2012, Samuel L. Jackson responded to A.O. Scott’s negative review of The Avengers by directing his social media followers to help Scott find “a new job.” It is an undeniably weird dynamic, with celebrities actively and passively leveraging their massive followings to attack professional critics for daring to subject their work to a thorough consideration.
There are likely a number of reasons for this trend. In purely logistical terms, social media has collapsed the distance between artists, fans, and critics. Not only is the barrier of entry much lower than it once was, but there is no longer any insulation between the three sides of that particular triangle. It’s easier for artists to see criticism these days, making it easier for them to react to it. It’s also easier for fans to engage with critics, making it easier to subject them to sustained harassment.
There is also the long legacy of the movement known as “poptimism”, which initially seemed to argue that popular art was just as valid and worthy of consideration as more conventionally serious material. It is a very good idea in theory. Indeed, these columns are arguably proponents of “poptimism” in its truest sense, earnestly arguing that maybe even junk like Night Swim has something to say about contemporary America that deserves proper in-depth examination.
However, in recent years, that argument has morphed into the idea that these objects don’t deserve serious consideration as works of art, but unquestioning celebration and uncritical endorsement. It isn’t enough that Marvel Studios is subject to rigorous critical analysis and contextualization in the larger context of contemporary popular culture. It must be validated. The critic’s job is to recognize these objects as the masterpieces that fans already know them to be. Anything else is heresy.
This gets back to the paradox of Taylor Swift. Swift is undeniably a major artist. Her Eras tour was the first in history to gross over a billion dollars. She will soon make her feature directorial debut at Fox Searchlight, and deserves – and has already received – serious consideration as an auteur. While celebrities like Courtney Love might casually argue that Taylor Swift is “not important”, the truth is that Swift is important and has been treated as important throughout her career.
Swift’s lyrics and music have been subject to intense scholarly scrutiny. Her body of work has been embraced as a sort of “canon.” New Hollywood legend and former film critic Paul Schrader unironically bows before Swift as “the godhead who makes existence possible and without whom we would wander forever in bleak unimaginable darkness.” There are very few celebrities in any medium who can claim to be taken more seriously than Swift is. “Poptimism” won.
As such, given that Swift deserves to be taken seriously, it’s worth asking: What kind of artist is Taylor Swift? What drives Swift? What are her central narrative and thematic preoccupations? It’s possible, and ultimately facile, to reduce Swift’s career to a series of break-ups, with many of her songs and albums corresponding to the dissolutions of her relationships with famous men: Harry Styles, Joe Jonas, Calvin Harris, Jake Gyllenhaal, and now Joe Alwyn and Matty Healy.
Of course, it’s reductive (and frankly somewhat sexist) to reduce a female artist’s work to the subject of the men in her life. It’s a very narrow way of looking at Taylor Swift’s discography, even if it is undeniably a part of her major concerns. Swift’s central driving ideas are somewhat broader. These works all fit within it, but it is more than just a cavalcade of failed relationships. It’s probably worth going back to Swift’s personal history, as narrated through her songwriting.
“The Best Day”, a track recorded for Fearless, her second studio album, seems instructive. The song is based on a true story from Swift’s own childhood, and the video includes home movie footage from Swift’s younger years. It recounts an occasion on which Swift invited her friends to go to the mall with her. When they all made excuses about how they were busy, her mother took her instead. It was there that Swift discovered that her friends had actually chosen to go to the mall without her.
This is a very formative memory for Swift, one that she frequently cites in interviews. “I just remember my mom looking at me and saying, ‘We’re going to King of Prussia Mall’,” Swift told GQ. “Which is the big, big mall in Pennsylvania, 45 minutes away. So we left and went to the better mall.” This story allowed Swift to cultivate what Hazel Cills described as “an underdog, misunderstood” narrative around herself, somebody picked on and bullied – but who inevitably overcomes.
This narrative is undeniably appealing. Whether consciously or not, it seems to be a large part of Swift’s popular appeal. “She has documented all of her life events, which is why the album is relatable whether you are a billionaire songwriter or not,” neuroscientist Dr. Julia Jones told Newsweek. “It shows that emotional turbulence is a part of life and that is why so many people can resonate with her.” This feeling of grievance and betrayal – and righteous vindication – is universal.
This is at the core of so many Taylor Swift narratives. Swift’s career, particularly her early career, has been defined by a series of conflicts and feuds with other celebrities, with Swift inevitably using her music to frame herself as a victim. The actual narratives of these feuds are often complicated and ambiguous, but Swift positions herself as somebody who is often betrayed or undervalued, and who dares to speak out against figures like Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, and Katy Perry.
This, more than anything else, is the framework in which those famous break-up songs sit. Swift’s love songs are often stories about how she is swept in passion and excitement, only to inevitably end up abandoned and betrayed by these selfish and flawed men. The albums and songs themselves, which are often decoded by fans and used to subject these men to incredible scrutiny over consensual relationships, can be seen as Swift’s righteous revenge against those who wronged her.
The essential part of this narrative is that Swift is confronted with a challenge or a betrayal or a setback, and she overcomes it. Not only does Swift avoid defeat, she emerges stronger. Swift’s friends might go to the mall without her, but Swift counters that by going to a better mall. These men might fail to live up to the trust that she has placed in them, but she’ll use the experience as a way to power her fame and fortune. It’s a narrative that relies on Swift positioning herself as an underdog, and then effectively flipping the tables on her betrayers.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with this. To her credit, Swift has used this to advance feminist causes and artists’ rights. When radio host David Mueller groped her after an interview, she took him to court over the issue to demonstrate that such behavior could not be tolerated. When producer Scooter Braun sold her old masters without her consent, Swift responded by committing to re-recording all of her old albums, turning the betrayal into a celebration of her ownership of her music.
However, the problem with being an underdog is that it requires an adversary who occupies a more advantageous position. Swift’s righteous anger needs to be directed at somebody. For that classic narrative structure to work, she – and her fans – need a challenge that they can overcome in order to sell the triumphant climax. It’s very hard to be the underdog when you own two private jets. It’s difficult to feel betrayed by your friends going to the mall without you when you can shut down the mall.
To be clear, there are undoubtedly constructive ways that Swift could harness this righteous anger and sense of frustration. In recent years, Swift has become increasingly politically conscious, and it seems to have had little impact on her fame and popularity. In recent years, women have seen their rights attacked and eroded in contemporary American culture. Swift’s audience undoubtedly connects with the anxieties about attempts to control their bodily autonomy.
Instead, there is something petty about Swift’s anger on The Tortured Poets Department, in which she appears to bristle at public criticism of her relationship with Matty Healy, given his provocative public statements. There’s a certain “woe is me” tone to the album, with Swift lamenting at one point, “I’m miserable, and no one even knows!” She goads listeners, “Try and come for my job.” There’s a sense in which Swift knows she is triumphant, but retains the same stance of victimhood.
It's hard not to listen to these songs and think about that backlash from Swift’s fans against her critics. It seems like it has internalized the same basic logic that underpins so much of Swift’s work. Swift is perhaps the most famous and successful celebrity on the planet, but that fame is built around the same core narrative. In this case, criticism of Swift’s music represents a betrayal of her mythology, and it demands righteous retribution. Swift has been wronged, and that must be righted.
It’s a very interesting dynamic, and it folds the narrative of Swift’s work into the broader fandom of her public persona. Swift is a storyteller, and every story needs a villain to be vanquished. In this case, it’s critics.
Comments
Tim Wilson
I can’t say I’ve ever been more interested in Swift than when she was on the radio or pub playlist (as she so often is) but this is a very interesting piece. I hadn’t realised her music was STILL about being the underdog or victim; my own preferred genre is Heavy Metal and the whole “Metallica v Napster” fight from eons past springs to mind. As you say, it’s hard to be the underdog or outsider when what makes you the outsider has either changed or vanished by dint of your success. By the sounds of it though, I expect her Presidential Nomination announcement to be both surprisingly imminent, and likely to far outperform Kaynes…
Nolan Barth
Sure, neither do I. It's just for me, as a musician and someone for whom music listening has always been a personal experience more than a communal one (I get my communal experience from performing music), it simply hadn't clicked at all why people liked her so much. That and to me Swift always came across as a bully trying to justify herself rather than an actual underdog. But maybe that's just because I'm from the same general area as her and have met plenty of attractive rich girls/women who act that way regardless of who was actually in the wrong.
Darren Mooney
Ha! To be fair, I also think it's "imperial phase" stuff. She's reached the point where nobody can even make a gentle suggestion to her.
HardRevenge
I enjoyed reading this piece because I like to believe that no matter ' how great the art is', the artist like is so interesting to not only learn new details about them but to see them through someone's elses perspective. Her music is ok, my nieces will probably obsess about her one day too.
dlgn13
Your commentary on the shift from "deserves to be treated as art" to "deserves freedom from criticism" reminds me of some recent drama in the tech community. A YouTube tech reviewer posted a negative review of some new AI gadget, and some finance-bro type "influencer" used his platform to argue that doing this was "distasteful, almost unethical" because it was bad for the company that produced the tech. I think there are two commonly-held beliefs about both art and technology that directly conflict with one another. First, that the best will rise to the top of the "marketplace of ideas" by criticism; and second, that negative criticism must be avoided, as it harms the artist or inventor. If criticism is impossible, there is no way to sort the good from the bad (or from the aggressively okay). In practice, this second belief tends to only come into play as a defense of work that the defender likes and is attached to, which suggests to me that it arises as a sort of reversal of the first. If it rises to the top, that means it's good; so if it doesn't rise to the top, that means it's bad. But I like it, so it can't be bad. The system must be broken! This is based on a fallacy, of course, denying the antecedent. But the human brain runs on emotions, not cold logic.
Emir Kotan
I agree. The irony doesn't really affect the strength of her songs in this case. She delivers :) At the same time, though, it's a bit scary how much power and influence she has now. I can only hope she won't give in to the dark side.
Darren Mooney
Ha! To be fair, I don't think I'll be branching out into full-time music criticism. But very glad I got to write this, and very glad Nick and Marty gave it the thumbs-up. And, yes, this would never have existed at "The Escapist." Which is fine, it's not in their particular ballpark.
Darren Mooney
Yep. I think it's not the sound of the music, although I'm willing to be proven wrong about that. I'm not an expert in pop music. But I don't think it's the brilliance of the hooks. I do think it's the narrative, and the experiential aspect of that. And, crucially, I think the fact that it invites the listener to participate in that narrative in a parasocial way that reflects these modern times. So, Swift just had her heart broken, but she turns it into a song or an album as a way to leverage that pain into forward movement, and you bought that album as a gesture of support that allows you to share in that and be part of it. Again, as with a lot of these conversations about Swift, I'm wary of sounding dismissive. I think the communal feeling that Swift engenders *can* be wonderful, and it obviously resonates with a large number of people - I'm not just talking about "Swifties", but I know people who just casually went to the Eras tour and thought it was a wonderful, communal experience, but wouldn't call themselves fans. I don't want to dismiss or belittle that.
Darren Mooney
To be fair, I think it's all about how you frame it. And I think, to her credit, Swift has traditionally been very good at understanding that. Every person has some story of betrayal or victimhood, no matter how rich or poor they are, famous or insignificant. Most people have had a personal relationship in which the other party betrayed a confidence or trust, and so it's possible to relate to that, even coming from the most powerful celebrity on the planet. That probably sounds flippant, but I honestly do think that's really wonderful. And I think it's why a lot of people respond to her work. And I honestly do think that it's not a narrative that gets mainstreamed as frequently as you might expect, given how universal it is. But I find the tension interesting when, as you said, you apply it to, "It kinda sucks that I am so famous, so successful and so rich, and people keep picking on me." And I think that's where a lot of the recent tension around Swift derives from.
HardRevenge
You being your own boss on second wind is the best idea Nickle has ever had! : - )
Nolan Barth
Personally, I'd always found Swift's immense success bewildering. I'm one of those who deep-dives musical subgenres and there's so many artists who sound almost identical to her that her gargantuan status in the last decade or so has been consistently confusing to me, but this piece really helps put it in perspective. It's not her music, it's the narrative and the voyeuristic enjoyment of the righteous anger through a paranormal relationship. This is more a case of celebrity growing into a cult of personality than a case of breakout musical success in and of itself.
Emir Kotan
Coincidentally, last week, I also started looking into Swift... the programming language. Wasn't expecting to learn more about Swift the human in the process. This was an interesting read :) There's definitely some irony there. Listening to songs about being the underdog, sung by a person who is the complete opposite of that.
Jack Philipson
The normal person/Swift fan dichotomy is shown quite well by the divide between received pop and rock wisdom that says you should get your album down to the best ten to twelve best tracks and it should be an hour long tops, and what Swift's fans want which is the maximum quantity of tracks possible no matter how much bloat and filler there is, because for them it's not filler it's more contact time with Taylor.
Darren Mooney
Ah, cheers!
Darren Mooney
Cheers, appreciate it. I am fascinated by Swift. I don't necessarily fall into either camp. I think, like most celebrities, she's a complicated figure. Particularly like most celebrities of that stature - Tom Cruise comes to mind as a similarly complicated figure - there's a lot there to unpack. Some of it is wonderful, and some of it is tied to her work and her popularity, and some of it is tied to darker and heavier baggage.
Darren Mooney
Thank you! Thought we'd try something different.
Fabian Ellis
I would add to this that Taylor Swift has been sharing lots of different reviews by critics on her blue verified, official Instagram stories recently. They’re still saved there now so anyone can have a read.
VeryProfessionalDodo
Very thoughtful piece! You struck a great balance between the “haters” and the “mega fans”, and analyse it from a distanced perspective that often is lacking in Internet discourse, loved to read this!
Manav Sridharan
Did not have this on my 2024 bingo card! Great piece, as someone who doesn't listen to much of her music but is exposed to the narratives through people around me, I found this extremely intriguing.
