Captain's Log, Day 15: Taylor Swift Gets Me

Date: May 6, 2020

Time of post: 11: 35 PM

Quarantine Day: 52

Last Song I Listened To: “King of My Heart" by Taylor Swift

Last Person I Communicated With: ChLA Group Chat (Dustin, Savannah, and Lexi)

Last Thing I Ate: earl gray tea

Last Thing I Read: The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

Current Mood: energized, inspired, and righteously angry

One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: put contacts in for the first time in forever

One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: finish reading The Marrow Thieves

One Reason I’m Stressed Today: so many decisions need to be made soon; goodbyes are coming (yep, same thing as last time)

One Reason I’m Happy Today: watched Taylor Swift’s Miss Americana documentary with Dustin and Savannah via Netflix/group chat tonight

Dear Apocalypsers,

Hold on to your red lipstick! This post is all about Taylor Swift!

I will be really honest. Taylor has been in my life longer than she wasn’t. Her debut album came out in 2006 when I was 10-years-old. I’m now 24-years-old. That’s 14 years of Taylor Swift.

And I’ve loved every second of it, from Country Taylor to Pop Taylor to Angry Taylor. I even loved Cats (2019), people! And tonight, for the first time, I watched her documentary, Miss Americana (2020) on Netflix, and now I am so full of genuine love and respect for this woman that I’m (almost) speechless.

I won’t start at the beginning (*cough, cough* December 13, 1989 when Taylor Alison Swift was born). I won’t even start with her first album (October 24, 2006)…or the first Kanye West incident (2009 VMAs)…no, I won’t even go into the feud surrounding his disgusting video for “Famous” (which I won’t even link to because he doesn’t deserve the YouTube views, but here’s an article about it)…I will mention that it all works out as of a few short weeks ago, because of course it does because #TaylorToldtheTruth, and she turned one of the lowest points of her life into a 3x Platinum album and a record-breaking tour…oh, and there was also the sexualassault case that she won in 2017 against a radio DJ who groped her, but that’s not exactly what I want to talk about, either…and don’t even get me started on the Scooter Braun/Big Machine/owning master recordings thing.

I want to talk about the fact that Taylor Swift is a person.

I tend to be very passionate about things. I’m a “go big or go home personality,” and I don’t do things halfway. And I love Taylor Swift…and Emma Watson…the Jonas Brothers…Ed Sheeran…you get the picture. In undergrad, I could basically cry on command if I thought about Emma Watson ever speaking to me. (I know how creepy that sounds.) There are some people that I’m just starstruck by the thought of, but I had a revelation during the early days of quarantine (maybe even the beginning of the semester), and I’ve kind of been chewing on it ever since: the more interviews I read and the deeper I dive into these celebs and their work, the more abhorrently disgusted I am by the music industry, Hollywood, and people in general. I mean, from the heads of studios down to the fans, there are a lot of really terrible human beings who just seem to forget that these uber-famous people are just…people. And that breaks my heart.

(TRIGGER WARNING: EATING DISORDERS AND BODY INSECURITY ARE TALKED ABOUT IN THE NEXT SEVERAL  PARAGRAPHS)

Like, Taylor Swift has ruled the music world for a solid decade: over 300 awards, 10 Grammys, 2 Albums of the Year, AMA Artist of the Decade, Kids Choice Awards, BMAs, Brits—the woman basically has it all. And she used to starve herself because she would see paparazzi pictures of herself that she thought she looked fat in. To say I sobbed is an understatement. Even listening to her talk about it during the documentary, you could tell it was still an incredibly hard thing for her. She talked about how she considered feeling like she was going to pass out during a show was just normal. She talked about the slippery slope of eating disorders and how no one sets out to have an eating disorder and how it just kind of happens. She also talked about how society is insatiable when it comes to women’s bodies: “There’s always some standard of beauty that you’re not meeting. Because if you’re thin enough, then you don’t have that ass that everybody wants, but if you have enough weight on you to have an ass, then your stomach isn’t flat enough. It’s all just fucking impossible.” (Side note: Taylor Swift saying “fuck” is my new aesthetic.) She compared her brain to a TV, telling herself to “change the channel” if she started thinking intrusive thoughts about her appearance and that “we don’t do that anymore.” I can’t even imagine the emotional strength that takes.

Like I’ve said before in this blog, I haven’t (and still don’t) have a great relationship with my body. There are little comments that will stick with me probably for the rest of my life—little insignificant things that mean less than nothing to the people who said them. I remember being ashamed of my weight for the first time in 3^rd grade. Third grade. I was probably 8-years-old. (So, body insecurity has been in my life longer than Taylor Swift and only a year less than the Harry Potter books. Think about that.)

When I was 16 and was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, I stopped eating carbs because I was terrified of my injections. It drained all my energy, but, boy, did I lose weight. (I basically did the keto diet before it was trendy, and that’s why I’m against the keto diet.) I remember how great it felt when people at church and school told me how skinny I looked—not “healthy” or even “good,” given my recent weeklong stay in the hospital or life-changing diagnosis, but “skinny”—with huge smiles like it was the greatest thing they could say to me. I had a shirt I dubbed my “skinny shirt” in my own mind because it was ruched and fitted at the waist, and I always got told I looked skinny when I wore it. My no-carb “diet” went on for about 6 weeks. I was falling asleep at the table. Thankfully, I decided I liked food more than I was afraid of needles (and that’s saying something!), and I was so sick of feeling listless, but I often think about how differently that could have ended for me.

My weight has been something that I have good days with and bad days with all the time—sometimes both on the same day. And, in the doc, Taylor says, “I’m a size 6 instead of a size double 0. I mean, that—that’s not how my body was supposed to be,” and that is an incredible revelation for her…but I couldn’t help think, “I wish I was a size 6.” Because the way that 5’10” Taylor Swift carries a size 6 body sure looks like a 00 to 5’4”, size 16 me. But I have to stop myself when I think those things, because I know that that’s just something that’s been ingrained in me. Instead I remind myself of the actual truth: Taylor is beautiful; Lizzo is beautiful; Adele is beautiful; I am beautiful. (I don’t have time to talk about Adele right now, but news just broke of her recent weight loss, and there are some news outlets and individuals who are just praising her dramatic weight loss since she came into the spotlight, and, honestly, it’s disgusting and ignorant and flat-out dangerous.)

A reminder that Adele's weight loss means nothing about you, about the culture, about anything (this coming from a celebrity profiler, mind you), and that thinking that it contains any significance at all is another way we seek to control women's bodies.

— Taffy Brodesser-Akner (@taffyakner) May 6, 2020

(OKAY, DONE WITH THAT TOPIC. I DO HIGHLY RECOMMEND MISS AMERICANA IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT. HER DISCUSSION OF EATING DISORDERS IS FROM 28:40-32:20.)

Besides how she’s expected to look, Taylor talks a lot—a lot—about how she was expected to be. Even growing up, she always wanted to be “good.” She opens the doc talking about how she thrived off praise and that was a lot of what kept her going. She wanted to be liked. She wanted people to like her and her music and her story, and at the tender of 15/16, she had record execs telling her what a exactly a “good girl” in the music industry looked like: be quiet; don’t talk about politics; don’t cause any drama, and really don’t talk about politics. And Taylor kind of traces how she started to feel unsettled by her “America’s Sweetheart” image as she got older, met and befriended LGBTQ+ people, and experienced firsthand issues like equal pay for women and sexual harassment in the workplace. So, before, the 2018 midterm elections, she spoke out against Tennessee’s Republican Senate nominee Marsha Blackburn’s policies—and about the worst thing that happened to her reputation was that Donald Trump said he liked her music “25% less.” (Blackburn did end up winning the race, but, at one point in the doc, Taylor reads  a news article that says over 51,000 people registered to vote nationwide in the days after her statement, more than the numbered who registered in the entire month of August 2018.) And I love the conclusion she comes to toward the end of the doc: “I want to love glitter and also stand up for the double standards that exist in our society. I want to wear pink and tell you how I feel about politics.” (Elle Woods would be proud, Tay!)

We have this weird dichotomy where women—and people in general, but it’s especially true for women, I think—can only be one thing, and certain “things” don’t mesh, like glitter and activism or pink and politics. And that’s something that I’ve had to process through in my own head. Like, I love stuffed animals. I still sleep with one that I’ve had since I was 2, and there’s an overflowing basket of them by my bed. My favorite color is glitter, and I’d paint my walls pink if my apartment would let me. But there are times when I’ve felt like that means I can’t be other “opposite” things. Like me loving soft and sweet things means I can’t be a “serious” scholar or a “professional.” And, most days, I know that’s a ridiculous notion. I can write (and have written) important and nuanced and serious papers while propped up against my giant stuffed unicorn named Susan. I don’t have to choose. Most days, I know that. But I love having a Taylor Swift quote to reference now for when I forget.

Okay, we’re 1600 words in and counting, and that’s enough and not enough space devoted to Taylor Swift. But I want to leave you all with this quote, the one she closes Miss Americana with: “I wanna’ still have a sharp pen and a thin skin and an open heart.” She’s coming out swinging in her 30s, guys. She’s had enough of the petty jabs at her “oversharing” in her songs. (You want to drag her about calling out John Mayer in “Dear John,” even though there’s a clear argument that the song is referencing a “dear John” letter? How come Ed Sheeran didn’t get the same flack for his song “Nina”? Harry Styles—the world’s favorite modern rockstar—has openlyadmitted to writing “Carolina” about a woman named Townes, whom he name drops in the song.[Don’t get me wrong; Ed and Harry are wonderful artists and great songwriters, but they haven’t been called out for the same kinds of thing that Taylor does, and that’s not fair.]) She’s had enough of the slut-shaming about her dating life and the bullying and the pressure to be something that someone else dictates to her. She’s taking everything that society has deemed her weaknesses and is turning them into her strengths. She’s stepped into the daylight, and we better be ready for it.

Until then, may the odds be ever in our favor,

Katie

via GIPHY

Bibliography:

Coscarelli, Joe. "Taylor Swift's 'Reputation' Sells 1.2 Million Copies in Its First Week." The New York Times, 21 Nov 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/arts/music/taylor-swift-reputation-million-sold-billboard-chart.html

Devoe, Noelle. "Directioners Found the Girl Harry Styles Wrote "Carolina" About and She's Lucky AF." Seventeen, 18 May 2017, https://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/movies-tv/news/a47330/directioners-found-the-girl-harry-wrote-carolina-about-and-shes-gorgeous/

Dockterman, Eliana. "'I Was Angry.' Taylor Swift on What Powered Her Sexual Assault Testimony." Time, 6 Dec 2017 https://time.com/5049659/taylor-swift-interview-person-of-the-year-2017/

France, Lisa Respers. "Adele lost weight, are we allowed to praise that?." CNN, 6 May 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/06/entertainment/adele-weight-loss/index.html

Grady, Constance. "Newly leaked footage shows Taylor Swift and Kanye West talking 'Famous'." Vox, 21 March 2020, https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/3/21/21189239/taylor-swift-kanye-west-famous-leaked-phone-call-kanye-west-is-over-party

Kreps, Daniel. "Kanye West Storms the VMAs Stage During Taylor Swift’s Speech." Rolling Stone, 14 Sept 2009, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/kanye-west-storms-the-vmas-stage-during-taylor-swifts-speech-83468/

"Last night was mad real: Kanye's new video depicts nude Trump, Taylor Swift." The Guardian, 25 Jun 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jun/25/kanye-west-famous-video-donald-trump-taylor-swift

Miss Americana. Directed by Lana Wilson, Trendo Productions, Netflix, 2020.

Rushe, Dominic. "Why Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun’s bad blood may reshape the industry." The Guardian, 23 Nov 2019,  https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/nov/23/taylor-swift-scooter-braun-amas-old-music-masters

Sheeran, Ed. “Nina.” X, Atlantic Records, 2014.

Styles, Harry. “Carolina.” Harry Styles, Columbia Records, 2017.

"Taylor Swift's Reputation Stadium Tour Breaks Record for Highest-Grossing U.S. Tour." Billboard, 30 Nov 2018, https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8487606/taylor-swift-reputation-stadium-tour-breaks-record-highest-grossing-us-tour