Standing backstage, microphone in hand, pop icon Taylor Swift takes a deep breath and says, “No one out there that I know of in the audience actively hates me.” She flashes a red-lipped smile and walks toward the stage.
This moment, though brief, is probably the most important in Swift’s new Netflix documentary, Taylor Swift: Miss Americana. It reveals that Swift, just as any other human being, cares about what others think. Obsessively so. It’s for this reason Swift decided to break her silence and weigh in on politics: She heard the criticism from leftist activists who prodded her to leverage her fame and prominence, and she listened.
“It’s not that I want to step into this,” Swift says at one point, sitting on her private jet while discussing the looming 2018 midterm election in Tennessee. “It’s just at this point, I can’t not.”
Miss Americana is a tribute to Swift’s career, tracing her evolution from the curly-haired teenage girl singing on Nashville’s streets to the famed woman who opposes “fascism,” stands up for “human rights,” and “deprograms misogyny” within her own mind. It’s overtly political, and that’s the point. Heretofore silent on the political issues of today, Swift wants her audience to know that she’s heard their pleas for intervention and that she is now willing to speak up.
What’s fascinating is that Swift describes this transformation as freeing. “I feel 200 pounds lighter,” she says after using an awards acceptance speech to push her fans toward the voting booths. She describes her political positions, which are completely unoriginal and unsurprising, as something she’s needed to get off her chest. And the only thing that’s held her back up until this point is the fear that sharing those opinions would result in backlash.
But if anything, “Miss Americana” proves Swift is still beholden to the thoughts and expectations of others. The only thing that’s changed is the group of people with whom she’s in tune. Unfortunately, that group (namely, Hollywood) is not representative of her general audience. The average Swift fan did not want Swift to become political, nor did they ask for it. The average high school girl does not even know who Marsha Blackburn is, why she’s important, or why Swift seems so adamantly opposed to her.
This documentary seems to be an attempt to change that, to inform her audience, and to bring her listeners along with her as she undergoes this political journey.
I have a hard time believing Swift’s efforts will be successful. Swift tried her hand at political influence in Tennessee’s 2018 election, but Blackburn won the Senate seat anyways, taking home every single Tennessee county besides the two that house Nashville and Memphis. And when Swift released her self-proclaimed political anthem You Need to Calm Down, the only thing listeners seemed to dislike was its Kidz Bop-reminiscent tune. Its pro-gay and transgender message didn’t spark outrage. It didn’t even provoke conversation.
The thing that made Swift interesting, and even likable, was her ability to remain above it all while writing music relatable to heartaches everywhere. Her deeply personal lyrics and her ability to weave stories using only a few chords made her great. Her politics had nothing to do with it. Yet she allowed herself to be so overrun by the opinions of the vocal few that she changed the one thing that made her unique: her neutrality.
Now, she’s the same as everyone else: stereotypically Democratic.
Swift’s fans will still listen to her music and attend her concerts regardless. Politics is an afterthought for most Swifties, and it always will be. But will they still like her? For Swift’s sake, I hope so.
