SMNTY Classics - Problematic Faves: Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift recently made the news by breaking her silence around politics. We look back at Taylor Swift's feminism in this classic episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and you're listening to stuff mom
never told you, and today we're gonna revisit a classic
episode about someone who's been in the news lately that

(00:28):
you might have heard of, Taylor Swift. I was sort
of a new Taylor Swift light fan. My ex boyfriend
loved her, and it did rub off on me, especially
when she would release a new music video, and they
were always so epic and so much production work in them,

(00:49):
and I was known to get drunk and talk about
how cool they were and make people watch them. A
couple of weeks ago, I faced what I called a
Taylor Swift conundrum, and it wasn't really that at all.
I just like having dramatic names to things. I had
bought a ticket to one of her to reputation concerts
in Atlanta like a year before it was scheduled to happen,

(01:12):
and then I totally forgot about it and agreed to
go film something for work that same weekend, and I
wrestled four days with whether I should sell the tickets
and travel to the filming location with the crew, which
was out of state by the way, or go to
the concert and wake up at three am the next
morning and drive several hours by myself to the filming location.

(01:35):
I was asking everyone what I should do, and finally
I decided to go. So worth it. There were these
light up wristbands that were tied and call it coded
to the music. There were snakes that were coming out
of the stage. No regrets, but yes, Taylor Swift is
in the news again, and not for music or a

(01:58):
beef with another pop star. She finally broke her political
silence in an Instagram post and came out in support
of Tennessee Democrats. Quote. In the past, I've been very
reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions. I feel very
different about that now. I always have and always will
cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and

(02:20):
fight for the human rights I believe we all deserved
in this country. I believe in the fight for lgbt
Q rights and that any form of discrimination based on
sexual orientation or gender is wrong in all caps. She
has over one hundred and twelve million followers on Instagram.
By the way, in sixteen, who is Taylor Swift going

(02:43):
to vote for? Was a top result on Google and
the response has been very mixed to her making this
political statement to say the least, and as you'll hear
in this classic episode, in part because of Taylor Swift's
political silence, her music has been popular among the alt right,
a K fascist, and neo Nazis, and they have swiftly

(03:05):
witches up on condemned her, going as far to say
that her career is over. Donald Trump says he quote
likes her music less now, which makes me like it
about more. After her post on Sunday, voter registration spiked
sixty five thousand registrations in twenty four hours. The spiking

(03:27):
of Taylor Swift song pun related headlines went through the
roof no end in sight, so we're just gonna have
to put up with that for a little while. In
light of all of this, we hope that you enjoy
this episode on Taylor Swift's feminism. Hey, this is Emily,

(03:49):
and this is and you're listening to stuff mom never
told you. Today, we are so excited to be joined
by Elisa Krissinger, executive producer over at Refinery nine, who

(04:09):
hosts a awesome, fierce feminist podcast and video series called
Strong Opinions Loosely Held. Thanks so much for tuning in
today to help us talk through this very fraught subject. Alisa,
We're so glad to have you. O hey, thanks so
much for having me. I'm so excited to walk through
this with you. Guys. So Alisa and I actually go

(04:30):
way back. I guess I should say, Alisa, Taylor Swift
and I go way back. Um. Alisa put together a fabulous,
fabulous panel at south By Southwest last year all about
celebrities and activism, and Taylor Swift came up quite a bit.
The number one question that we left that panel with
was who did Taylor Swift to vote for? Later on,
I was on an episode of her really amazing show

(04:51):
talking about Taylor Swift and all the ins and outs
of who she is as a feminist, as an artist
and all of that. So we really, Alisa, we really
go way back when it to We do totally. And
I think it kind of started when you posted that
thing on Facebook about who your most problematic save was,
and I scrolled through it and so many people said

(05:12):
Taylor Swift exactly, And that was when we started this series.
You may recall our lovely listeners. The first episode we
did on Problematic Faves was with the One and Only
Judge Judy, which was such a fun episode, and I
loved putting that together. And I'm not gonna lie when
I dropped in that Taylor Swift was my problematic fave,
and so many of you agreed. I have been dragging

(05:35):
my feet putting this episode together because I was seriously
dreading it. Well, people love Taylor Swift. I love Taylor Swift,
and I have to come out first and foremost by
saying the reason problematic faves are hard is because you're
trying to reconcile. And that's what we're gonna trying to
do today with everybody here, how you can both respect

(05:56):
and love the artistry of someone like Taylor Swift and
hold him accountable totally. I think she represents a great
example of how you can be both a fan of
popular culture but a critic of it at the same time.
Exactly what I think we should do today, as so
many people are tuning into this thinking like, okay, walk
me through this. I've I've seen the tweets. Have you
seen these? Bridget to our Twitter handles saying I need

(06:19):
you to unpack Taylor Swift for me because I have
so many feels for her. So what I'd like to
start with, is what about her do we love and respect?
And what about her is seriously problematic and worthy of
of breaking down? Does that sounds like a good place
to start. That sounds like a good place to start.
I just want to give a big caveat. I don't

(06:39):
actually care for Taylor Swift, and I hope that something
about this once and people didn't care for that opinion.
You know what is my opinion. I don't have to
like everybody. I don't care for Taylor Swift. Bridget is
Bridgets coming out as anti Taylor Swift anti, I will
go that far. I don't care for her. Okay, Yeah,
that's an important distinction. Okay at least? So where do

(06:59):
you down on the Taylor Swift love a meter? Yeah?
I mean I think that no one represents the resentment
America has towards white women better than Taylor Swift, and
I think that pushes me more towards a love and
a hate. I think she's got a great opportunity to
do something with the platform and power and privilege that
she has, but she kind of hasn't. So I'm like,

(07:22):
I'm very lukewarm. I saw squarely. I think in between
both of you. Okay, well this is good. They should
make for a good conversation. Then I'm like sweating already,
but this is good, So let me start here. And
I'm not trying to position myself as the defender of
Taylor Swift. I'm just here to say she's like you are.

(07:42):
Now I'm really sweating, um. But I do think that
what I have recognized and putting this episode together is
that it is very easy to want to look away
when someone you are a fan of is doing some questionable,
shady right, Like it is easy to catch yourself ignoring
the bad because you want to vehemently and only support

(08:05):
the good. And we're going to talk about today how
we can hold those two truths at the same time,
and why it's okay to have problematic faves just like
Judge Judy, but why it's also really really important that
we hold our celebrity idols accountable. So first and foremost,
as an entrepreneur, I find her drive and her vision
and the fact that she made this lifelong ambition of

(08:26):
hers a reality and was very much central as a
young girl really to positioning herself for the pop sensation
she's become like she was very much in the driver's
seat of her own career from a young age, and
that to go way back to Taylor's origins, that's one
of the things that really wins my respect in her case.

(08:47):
I can definitely respect the idea that she was this
young girl with a dream and she made that dream
of reality. That's something that tails at those time got
to give it up for that. I definitely applaud her
for making that happen, and that's not something that's easy.
Something that I've actually always liked about Taylor is that
she's has a lot of control over her art and
over her career. And so, you know, you see a

(09:08):
lot of things in the media about young pop stars
who kind of somebody else is driving all the shots
and making all the calls and their label is being
awful and they just put up with it. Taylor is
not someone who does that. Right. At eleven years old,
she convinced her mom to take her on a trip
to Nashville where she could go door to door on
Nashville record labels giving them a homemade CD demo no bites, right,

(09:33):
so she got no traction from that, and at eleven
years old, that's cute, Like Oh, a little girl with
the dream, but the rejection that she experienced could have
been a career ender for most eleven year old but
not for Taylor. She at that point learned to play guitar,
started writing her own songs I'm sure, bankrolled by her
very well off parents, with a lot of assistance from professionals.

(09:55):
But at fourteen years old, when our c A, one
of the largest record labels in Nashville, gave her a
development deal which was kind of like an investment for
a year. I wasn't a full record deal, but it
was like, let's fund your learning and growth and progress
and see what happens. But at the end of the
year they took a pass on her. We're not going

(10:15):
to fund a record deal. Wanted to keep her on
the label, but shelf her and she walked away from
our ci A and at that same time convinced her
entire family to relocate to Nashville for her career at
fourteen years old. I mean that you've got to give
it up for her. That I applaud her. I applaud her.
I will give the caveat that. Luckily, she had the

(10:36):
kind of family where relocating to a different city to
support the artistic dream of your young daughter was a reality.
Because I've heard many, many, many stories of like, oh,
I've got my mixtape, my demo, I've been telling it,
showing it to everybody, but that that same person doesn't
have the means to do that, the story could go
very differently. So I applaud that very very much. But
I think it's very lucky that she had that kind

(10:59):
of family support where that was possible. Totally. And to
on that note to Bridget, I think you know, a
lot of her brand has been built on being an outsider,
but really she grew up on a Christmas tree farm. Um.
She has this very ideal childhood, and not that we
should be holding that against her, but it certainly helps
to find and follow your dreams when you come from

(11:22):
wealth and privilege. Both of her parents, UM were executives
UM at banks, and she herself actually wanted to go
into the banking industry before she found Before she found
country music specifically, UM. I think that she was most
inspired by crossover artists on the nineties like Faith Hill,

(11:43):
she and I Twain and the Dixie Chicks, and then
she changed her tune no pun intended and UM wanted
to go in a different direction, which, again I applaud
her hustle, just like you said, totally applaud her hustle,
I mean, and bridget copy paste. Yeah, but it's a
lot easier to do, and your parents have a ship
ton of money, exactly, And she had parents who were

(12:05):
willing to listen to her. So here's the thing. Yes,
she comes from a bunch of privilege, financial privilege, the
privilege of having two parents who were willing to support
your insane dream at eleven years old or fourteen years old,
and beyond that, parents who were willing to invest hard,
earn money, time, energy, and effort in your pipe dream. Really,

(12:26):
and yet, at the same time, being wealthy does not
make you talented. Being wealthy and privileged does not make
you ambitious, and it sure as hell doesn't make it
a guaranteed that At a showcase she had in Nashville
at fourteen years old, Scott borshetta who had just left
another huge record label, I believe Universal, He approached her

(12:48):
and said, so, the good news is I want to
sign you for a record deal. The bad news is
I don't have a record label. You would be the
first person. So she took a chance on him, and
three years later her record sales topped seven million. Seven
million three years later, that's hugely impressive. And just to
go back for a second, I think the point that
I'm making is that both things can be true. It

(13:09):
can be true that she's ambitious and talented but also
had a lot of help and was very lucky and
had supportive, privileged parents, and that was also a very
influential for her success. And so I'm not saying that, oh,
the only reason why she did that is because she's
rich and her parents are supportive and blah blah blah.
Obviously not because you have to have talent, right, So
at the end of the day, she does have talent.
I think that's clear. So I just think it's possible

(13:31):
that both things exactly exactly. And that's part of what's
challenging about being a fan of hers and hearing the critics.
It's like, yes, those things are both true. Can we
acknowledge that they're both present? The other thing that's undeniable
is that her songs are hella catchy. In fact, Okay,
putting reputation aside for a second, because we all have
very strong opinions on reputation. Her latest album, which we're

(13:53):
gonna talk about further, but there was an SNL skit
that I think put it perfectly that was called Swift Mean,
and it was a commercial kind of like for drama
mine for sudden onset of vertigo induced by the fact
that you're jamming out to a song at the club
and then you realize it's by Taylor Swift, and you're like, what,

(14:13):
I'm a grown ass woman and I love Taylor Swift.
Girl can write a song and it's so perfect because
it's hilariously fraught in that you love the music and
then when you realize it's by who Taylor Swift? That album,
That last album really reached across the age spectrum and
I think got a lot of people on board with

(14:34):
Taylor Swift's music. What do you think, Alisa, Yeah, I
think she's really good at what she does. She's a
great artist, and no one can deny that. I think
that we all want to make sure that our politics
match our popular culture, So I think in terms of
popular culture, she's awesome. Had it. She knows the game.
She plays it really well when it comes to making

(14:55):
a product that people can't get out of their heads, right,
And that's what her role as a pop star is,
so totally a plus in that category for sure. So
I'm not the biggest fan of her music, but you know,
I love pop music. I love pop songs. And one
of the things I love the most about pop music
is that it doesn't even matter if it's a genre
that you like or an artist that you like. You
when you hear a perfect pop song, you know what's

(15:17):
a perfect pop song, right, So, like when you hear
Katy Perry's Teenage Dream, like, you know, whether you like
Katy Perry or not, whether you like that kind of
music or not, you know it's a perfect pop song.
And so I think kind of like what at LASTA
was just saying, she's so good at creating these perfect
pop songs as a as a product, and that even
if you don't like Taylor Swift, you don't like her music,
you listen to something like shake It Off, and you

(15:38):
know that's a perfect pop song, right like it just
it doesn't like like it's undeniable. So I will say,
I mean, even though I'm not her biggest fan of musically,
I can recognize that she really knows that she's doing
when it comes to crafting a marketable, perfect well crafted
pop song. And really what's interesting is that she came
up in country, right. She came up in the country world,

(15:59):
and in anyways broadened the genres reached by writing teenage
love songs really about high school era heartbreak that popularized
country music amongst suburban teenage girls for the first time,
really expanding the demographic that the industry was able to reach.
That was extraordinary at first. Then she transitioned into pop

(16:22):
made her into a different kind of artist. She sort
of redefined herself in the public eye, which is not
an easy thing to do. And beyond that, her tour,
I think her tour on record was some of the
most interesting artistic choices that I've ever seen an artist make. Notably,
she featured other really incredible artists and sort of introduced

(16:46):
her fandom to other artists across genres, people like pit
Bull and Charlie XCS, Alison Krausse, the Band, Perry Whiz Khalifa,
John Legend, Mary J. Blige. She was, in so any
raise generous with how she proceeded in nine. Whether you
see it as being crafted in a strategic sort of

(17:09):
marketing standpoint or as an altruistic move I think it
can be both at the same time as well. Yeah,
I mean I would almost push back on some of
those because I feel like, if you have an icon
like Mary J. Blage on your album, you're not doing
her the favor. She's doing you favor. Right there are
people I'm like, yeah, like Taylor wasn't like I'll give you,
I'll do this a favor for you, Mary, Like, that's true.

(17:30):
She's a peak popularity to Also on the nine tour,
I think it's important to call out that she made
I think Apple Um she did a takeover of the
Apple Store, so everything featured her branding, right. Like, from
a business perspective, she's been really good at marrying capitalism
with artistic expression. Down to her issue with Spotify, which

(17:53):
is that they want they needed to pay artists more.
She's taken up these causes that do allow her to
spress herself in the way she wants to express herself,
make the product she wants to make while also making bank,
and that's hard to do. People have been trying to
do that since the dawn of time. So I feel like,
in a way, you know, she has mastered that with

(18:14):
n specifically, but throughout her career as an artist totally.
And then the last big notable mentioned I have to
acknowledge in terms of her artistry before we take a
quick break, is her use of social media, especially on
the platform Tumbler, was really kind of extraordinary and how

(18:34):
she interfaced with her fans from a young age, from
the beginning of her career. Yeah, I'm actually consistently impressed
with her youth of social media even now. Even now,
you can find her leaving cute comments on fans posts
about her. People will post like, oh my god, I
love Taylor Swift, and she'll comment, oh my god, Hi,
it's Taylor. And you know, I actually genuinely believe that

(18:55):
that's not an assistant or a social media manager. I
believe that is a percent Taylor. And so I'm someone
who loves like memes and the Internet. She's shown herself
to be someone who's very read in on those things.
If you've ever seen that iconic Tumbler post where it's
a picture of Taylor Swift and the the comment says,
this is my friend Becky who died after using marijuana,
and someone comments, no, that's Taylor Swift. And then the

(19:18):
other comments says, no, it's Becky. There's a picture of
Taylor Swift wearing a shirt that says no, it's Becky.
So I like the idea that Taylor Swift knows what
the chatter is about her on places like Tumbler and
Instagram and plays into it in a way that I
think it's really clever and funny and dare I say cool.
I never thought I would hear myself saying that I
think Taylor Swift is cool. But that is cool being

(19:40):
read in on what the internet is saying and knowing
how to wink, wink, not not at it. That is
a cool thing totally. I mean, I think what she
gives to teenage girls and young women in particular is
validation that they're not crazy, that they're not insane, that
they can have feelings and feel certain ways, and participate
in social media, on social platforms with each other, talking

(20:00):
to each other in a language of popular culture that
they we all understand and we all speak. She gets that,
and she talks back about language, and I think that
that's really valuable. Oh. I love how you put that
that she she speaks in that language, where as someone
who grew up on and on the internet late at night,
on MySpace and message boards and all that. Having someone

(20:22):
as a famous as Taylor Swift speaking in that language
is powerful, particularly when you're a young girl, when you're
when you feel like all the things that you're doing
online are like geeky or nerdy or stupid or weird
or whatever. Having someone as famous and beautiful and influentialist
Taylor Swift say that's okay, and I'm going to speak
back at you with that language is so powerful. She

(20:43):
brings her fans into the process in a way that
I thought was really interesting, especially she turned some of
her online conversations into in person invitations for listening parties.
Of course she used that to sort of build buzz,
make her swift ease feel very spec shoal and in
so many ways it married true online to offline organizing too.

(21:07):
Why you did not go there? I just did go
there too. It marries that with marketing. She I mean,
she totally commercialized her fandom, but she did in a
way that is textbook organizing. I like it. Where you
she It is sort of like she made these little
organized the little Taylor Swift organizers. Yeah, I haven't thought
of it that way, but that is something. There's something

(21:27):
to that, and I don't see anyone else doing that.
I mean, she in many ways like has pioneered that
fan interaction in a way that whether you believe it's
genuine or not, in my opinion, does not matter because
she made her fans feel like it was genuine. She
certainly makes it seem like she's being genuine about it

(21:48):
and she's making bank at the same time. Like you
were saying, a Lisa, it can be both. Question. Who
do you think has more of abbid fans, Taylor Swift
or the bay Hive? Beyonce? Oh, I don't know, Beyonce. Yeah,
I might say Beyonce too, because Taylor's fans are they're
really really right or dive for Taylor, but the bay

(22:09):
hid like will take people down like they're there. They
are no joke. I just feel like you can be
Taylor Swift and even Taylor Swift bows down to the
Queen Bear, you know what I mean. I like that.
I feel like there's just no comparison. Also from the artist.
I mean, can we just say it, it's amazing to
have two artists like Taylor Swift and Beyonce's Lemonade coming

(22:30):
up in the same We're like in a very special time. Yeah,
I think we're in a special time for women in
pop music because I think so long we've been told
that when a woman is a pop artist, that she's
just frivolous, it's abot her boyfriend's blah blah blah. But
I'm happy to be in a time where we are
understanding and appreciating that as art. So I don't want
to make it seem like I don't think that about
Taylor Swift. I think that Night nine was a piece

(22:52):
of art, and I think people recognize that asked that,
and I think that's the way it should be. Do
you think Taylor how to galvanize her fans and organize
them through specific tactics, whether real or a marketing campaign.
Do you think that she had to organize those young
women into segments of her fans or like fandoms because

(23:12):
she's a female artist and all that female fan labor
usually goes towards younger male artists, and it's something that
we haven't maybe seen so much of or have a
model or business model for young female fans supporting a
young female artist. I actually think there's something to that idea,
because when you think about organized fandom right where it's

(23:34):
fan clubs and people writing letters and sending emails and
having meetups and all of that things that involve a
lot of labor and in real life work, you really
do see a lot of that for boy bands and
artists who are young men. And so I actually do
think it's interesting that Taylor Swift hasn't been able to
generate that same level of in real life connection and

(23:54):
engagement with young fans being a young woman, because you
really don't see that often. I don't know I see
it broken down in gender as much as I see
it as in terms of the shifting nature of media.
Because of social media, the ability to be more in
control of your fandom has never been greater. But now

(24:16):
there are things like record labels and book publishers who
are trying to redefine the value that they bring to
an artist like Taylor Swift. The label wasn't going to
organize her fans for her. She being the kind of
control freak that I think she might be over her image,
over her brand, over her creative control, took the reins
on that department just as much as she did artistically,

(24:37):
and so I think that was a really wise decision
on her part that she didn't have to make, you
know what I mean Again, I think it's an example
of her business savvy. I totally agree on that. And
I also think that it takes for thought and respect
for young women and the power that comes with female
fandom to be able to say, let me, let me
get a hold on this, let me modify it. Um.

(25:00):
Not that obviously male artist young male artists haven't done
the same thing. From the Beatles, you know, all the
way to Justin Bieber, like, young women are always ahead
of the curve. They're always predicting trends. Um. Look it's
not chat for example, um all that stuff young girls predict.
And I think that she harnesses that power again, that
understanding of young women, and just turned it in her favor. Again,

(25:22):
not saying that that's a good or bad thing. Actually
think it's a great thing because she respects that female
labor and it's like I see you, and I'm going
to make something for you. I think that's absolutely right.
In fact, it kind of sounds like you're talking about
the concept of a squad, which I want to dive
into after we take a quick break, will be right
back after a word from our sponsors. So we're back

(25:52):
and we are talking through one of many people's most
problematic fast faive and that is Taylor Swift. Why we
love her, why she's a little problematic, and hope she
can be better. And we want to tackle this idea
of squad power. And I was actually really excited to
see Taylor go from writing about boys primarily to defining

(26:14):
herself by her girlfriends. I thought it was pretty exciting
to see the era of strong, powerful women being championed.
And yet there are some totally legitimate critics about her
use of squad at least. So what do you think
about Taylor and the era of squad? I think the
era of the squad illustrated that Taylor could really make

(26:35):
a career out of both putting women down and supporting them.
So she started her career, you know, really again in
the country music department again, even though she came from Pennsylvania.
Um was really able to ride that wave of country music.
But a lot of the songs during that time we're

(26:55):
kind of putting women down. UM, I don't know if
you guys sample songs that she really went from a
country music star from our song, which was a popular
favorite if you listen to it, it's going to be
stuff in your head for three days to pop star
which was shake it Off, which we all know and
I'm sad to admit with my ring tone for like
three months. Um. And she really did go from putting

(27:17):
women down from Better Than Revenge, where she compares um,
a woman who's an actress to her skills on a mattress.
You can hear that that rhyme. That's probably intentional, And
so she goes from putting women down to embracing them
in the squad. So it's just it's it's hard to
watch this commodification of feminism happen through the squad, Like

(27:41):
you can't just put women down and build your career
up on that while also surrounding yourselves with a bunch
of women who you hope to exemplify parts of your
identity on like look here's Cam and look, I'm kind
of indie, you know, here's Lina Dunham. So I also
have that kind of like writer least side of me.
I guess you can do it because she did. But

(28:03):
I think the backlash to the squad illustrated that it's problematic.
The squad of itself is a problematic phase and to
quote bridget Todd, how many people are in this squad? Yeah.
I wasn't a big fan of the squad as I think,
you know, Alisa, I just think that squad to me
seems like it's an automatically exclusive thing, right, So if
you got a squad, my immediate first thought is who's

(28:25):
included and who's excluded, one of the ins and outs
of the squad. I also didn't love that people gave
her all this credit for coming up with the idea
of squad, when in fact, the term squad has had
roots and black and hip hop communities since forever. Like
Taylor Sipt did not invent the idea of squads and
squatting up. Those have been in hip hop songs for
a very long time. And that I didn't love seeing
how when she started saying squad and squad goals, it

(28:48):
became a thing, and it just seemed like another way
that she was able to put her sort of shiny
white girl branding on something that already existed. Yeah, and
she never gave any credit for not inventing it. She
did pularize it, but she's not. It's not like she said,
f y, I historically this is uh, you know, long
bed of thing in black culture and a hip hop
and I'm squatting up now and that's exciting you should do.

(29:09):
There was no acknowledgement of that. I definitely think more culturally,
we associated the idea of squad with Taylor. Whether or
not that was something that is on us or on her,
I think it's a good question, but it was just
something that I couldn't shake it off feeling a little
bit icky about. I think you're totally spot on. It
also felt triggering for a lot of women who were
bullied by women because the click culture, Like if she

(29:32):
called it click, which who did that? Kanye being with
my click? Right, Yeah, that's Kanye and jay Z. It
really reminded you of that sort of caddy, this girl
culture of high school or middle school, where a pack
of roaming best girlfriends could be vicious. Yeah, a pack
of roaming, blue eyed, leggy, beautiful, popular, powerful girls. Honestly,

(29:54):
sometimes I feel like the only reason I don't like
Taylor Swift it's because she reminds me of every popular
all from my high school who I was legitimately afraid of, right,
And at the same time, she's playing the outsider dork
card like I'm just I don't belong just like you,
and we're like, okay, shut up, you're perfect, you know,
like just own it, you know what I mean. That's
the frustration. I honestly going back to that, I remember

(30:17):
finding out that Taylor Swift drove like a luxury convertible
when she was in high school, and that was the
first time I realized, Oh, this persona that she had
built early on in her career, where you know, she's
got the curly, frizzy hair and the glasses and I
am so nerdy. It's like, you're if you're driving a
car like that in high school, come on, like, we
all know, we all know what those social markers mean
and what they don't mean. And I just saw her

(30:37):
adopting social markers that were had nothing to do with
her actual lived experience. And I remember the first time
that those two things came in conflict. Something about finding
out that she drove a luxury convertible car in high
school just blew my mind and blew the whole thing
wide open. But she probably went to a school where
everybody did, and so she could somehow still be an
outsider dork. I mean, I'm not saying she was or wasn't,

(30:59):
but in my high school, that would not have made
you an outsider dork. Now, there's one other thing we
have to talk about Taylor related that I actually thought
was a pretty awesome thing that she did, and that
was her outspoken, courageous advocacy on sexual assaults and really
standing up for victims of sexual assault, not only through

(31:21):
pursuing her own case, which was really a counter suit
but let's let's talk about that more in a second,
but also her support of Kesha, who we know has
also been really abused by her own record label and
her own producer who she's accused of assault. Now, Taylor
Swift did not need to go through the costly, time
consuming and probably very triggering process of taking this jerk

(31:44):
to court, and she didn't even go out of her
way to sue this guy. She actually countersuit. So this guy,
David Mueller, is like a DJ in Denver who, during
a fan meet and greet she says, assaulted her right.
She says that he stuck his hand up her skirt
and grabbed her ass during a fan meet and greet.
She didn't sue him, but he sued her because he

(32:09):
ended up getting fired because she made sure that his
boss knew what had gone down. He got fired, and
he was suing Taylor Swift and her manager and parent
for back pay that he lost due to losing his job.
And to me, I would be like, oh, hell no,
I'm taking this what a Exactly he said that she

(32:29):
falsely accused him of assault, which is like, how much
huspah does it have to take to actually assault someone
and then sue them for accusing you of assault and
having lost your job? That's like, just think about the
audacity of doing that to someone like Taylor Swift. So
he was suing for two point nine eight million in damages.
She countersued for one dollar and one this past August.

(32:52):
So I actually have nothing but respect for Taylor in
this regard. I have nothing kudos to her. I can
only imagine how many a young women out there who
have dealt with sexual assault, who have been told it's
their fault? What are you wearing? All of that nonsense
that we tell survivors of sexual assault and sex crimes
Taylor would have none of it. And I can't imagine
what it must feel like to be a young survivor

(33:14):
of sexual assault and watch this. I applaud her for this.
This is this is what I'm talking about. I think
that when Taylor Swift uses her platform to take a stand,
it can reverberate through the nation, through the world. And
I think somebody out there is going to have watched
that trial and watched how she didn't back down, didn't
allow herself to be shamed, didn't allow herself to be

(33:34):
victim blamed, and said no, something illegal happened to me,
And I am going to have my justice. Somebody out
there is watching that, and they're gonna go report or
they're gonna go get their justice. They're gonna hold somebody accountable.
And I think I have This is what I'm talking about.
She has this platform where she can really do so
much good when it goes right. I think with Taylor Swift,

(33:55):
it goes really, really, really right. Alsa, what do you think.
I thought it was really well timed because it happened
I believe in August or September, late August early September,
during back to school, and that's the month where obviously
students are going back to school and on campus rape
and sexual assault is usually the highest. So I thought

(34:15):
it came at a nice time for her to have
that message of saying, look, it's totally inappropriate to be
touched in this way. I think post Weinstein, now it's
a really interesting It's really interesting to look back at
Taylor's case post Weinstein and see how she in a
way helps set the stage for women to start calling

(34:39):
this gross behavior within their industry out on a national stage.
So I applaud that. Do I think she was using
it a little bit to set the ground or set
the stage for her new album. Yeah, but I wouldn't
put it past her as a celebrity to want to
stay relevant at any cost. Yeah. I think you're spot on.

(35:00):
And this is, like Bridget you were saying earlier, an
example of how powerful Taylor can be when she wants
to be an advocate. In a statement following the trial,
Swift actually acknowledge the symbolism behind her win and in
doing so, for the first time that I've read, really
called out her own privilege in a way that really
made me excited and think, Okay, Taylor, you're on the

(35:21):
right track, like maybe we can see more of this
in the future. From her, she wrote, I want to
acknowledge the privilege that I benefit from in life, in society,
and in my ability to shoulder the enormous cost of
defending myself in a trial like this. She continued, my
hope is to help those whose voices should also be heard. Therefore,
I'll be making donations in the near future to multiple

(35:43):
organizations that help sexual assault victims defend themselves. This is
the kind of thing that's going to get me and
a Tailor Swift concert row Rocket a red lip singing
along like I love it. Like if I could use
this as a case study for how to be an advocate,
how to how to show others how to be advocates,
I would. And I just think that what she did

(36:04):
was so brave and so great and so right, and
it just really goes to show the immensive power that
someone like Taylor Swift has and his whole lawsuit. And
this great statement came almost a year after she donated
two dollars to KESHA, two days after a New York
judge denied Kesha a court injunction that would have allowed
her to record new music outside of her record label,

(36:25):
So the courts don't always rule in women's favor on
this issue, even if you're a famous pop star. And
whether she's winning and making a really profound statement like
that or watching a colleague lose and throwing some money
her way as a token of support and appreciation, this
issue is an example of Taylor walk in the feminist walk,
and we really need to see her do that in

(36:47):
a more intersectional way. Well, that's what I'm saying. I'm
sure that publicly supporting Kesha over Dr Luke probably does
have negative connotations for Taylor, even somebody as powerful as
she is in the industry. And I think that the
fact that she did it anyway shows sometimes being a
feminist is hard, but you do it anyway. And I
just I think that what she did is exactly what
we're talking about when it comes to walking the walk.

(37:08):
When we come back from this next break, we're going
to talk through some of the ways she's not always
walking the walk, some of the ways she can walk
that walk a lot better, especially when it comes to
race and intersectional feminism and how we hope that we
can expect more of this kind of privilege acknowledgment and
real feminism on display from the one and only Taylor Swift.

(37:31):
We'll be right back, and we're back, and it's time.
It's time to talk through some of the biggest issues
that folks rightfully have with Taylor Swift. And let's start

(37:53):
with this concept of her use of the white victim.
She sort of plays this white victim car which to me,
I think the narrative began around the Kanye v m
A situation when she received the award over and above
Queen b who we've already described and sort of as

(38:13):
the queen of pop. So Taylor gets on stage to
accept her award, Kanye West sort of jumps right up there,
takes the mic silence as her makes her look like
the white victim. And I think she's been playing that
angle ever since. What do you think? Yeah, I think
I agree with the idea of the white victim. I

(38:34):
think that was one of the first examples where she
exposed herself as one of the most dangerous types of
white women. There's a great quote by a cultural critic,
Damon Young, and he said that this is a Taylor's
um next altercation with Kanye regarding the recordings that he
made um saying that he made that famous meeting Taylor,

(38:58):
And what Damon says is what Taylor did was use
the inherent empathy and benefit of the doubt. Her white
womanhood allows her to possess to throw a black person
under the bus if necessary and convenient. And I feel
like this, this first instance with Kanye on the v
m A stage was the first look that we got

(39:20):
of how she uses her victimhood as a way to
get things from popular culture and not kind of like
helps her brand move forward. She's a victim, she's the outsider,
and you can't really exploit the same system you claim
to be a victim of. And that's kind of my
issue with this first altercation with Kanye. Yeah, I mean

(39:43):
I honestly could not agree more. And I think what
you said about the idea of the benefit of the doubt,
that's what I think for me is one of the
things I find so frustrating about Taylor Swift is that
she sees this this so first of all, it's kind
of one of those don't hate the player, hate the
game situation s where I think Taylor Swift sees the
world that we live in. She sees that Kanye West,

(40:05):
as a black man up against her as a white woman,
that he is going to automatically have people no matter
what he does. So I think that what he did
that vm AS was awful, but that people are going
to automatically be skeptical of him. And so when you
look at what happened between, you know, her being like, oh,
he had this line in a song and never talked
to me about it, and him being like, I got

(40:25):
permission from her to use this line automatically. I think
that she knows, well, people are gonna believe me over
him because I'm a white woman, and I think that
she plays into that in a way that I find
very very uncomfortable, playing up her own victimhood over and
over again. I think it's something that she's really benefited from.
But I mean that Kanye West to vm a speech
that happened so long ago, and she's still like, years

(40:48):
and years and years later, she referenced it in her
her next her next time at the vim as, she
gave that speech that was partly about it. Like, I
get it that it was a traumatic, big thing that
happened to her, but I don't like the idea of
building a brand on this one thing. And once again
SNL sort of mirrored this when they satirized her being

(41:08):
constantly in a state of shock and awe and oh
my goodness, I won again. She sort of plays this
geeky outsider like you've mentioned earlier, Alisa, but she's anything
but right. She sort of plays the underdog because everybody
loves an underdog, even though we know she's not. And
I'll admit Kanye did victimize her when he interrupted her.

(41:29):
That was rude, right, I think Obama. President Obama called
him a jackass when describing Kanye's behavior. But you're right,
She's constantly played into that because it's worked for her.
And what was the most troubling instance in which she
played that card, in my opinion, is this Twitter fight
with Nicki Minajh. So, Nikki, the nominations come out again

(41:52):
for the Best Music Video of v M a years later,
and Nikki says, you know, she wasn't nominated. Only women
with thin bodies get nominated for these kinds of awards. Now,
if you look at the lineup of all the other nominees,
it was Beyonce, Taylor Swift, and a couple of guys
like a bunch of guys, and so Taylor interpreted that

(42:15):
as a slight against her because everything is about her. Well, actually,
if you think of the I think it was a
rational conclusion. But she missed the point. She thought she
was being called out because she mentioned slim white women's bodies.
The only slim white woman in that category was her, Taylor.
She didn't actually say white. She didn't know, but she
did say, so it's I think that's a fair and

(42:38):
I think that's a fair reading between the lines. But
here's my thing, Nicki Majaj about her. Nicki Minaj wasn't
calling out Taylor Swift. Nicki Minaj was calling out white supremacy,
and Taylor Swift, in her mind thinks this is about
me and it's not about her, And I think that's
what for me, that's what it comes down to, not
everything is about you winning and women's supporting women and
all that. Nicki Minaj had a right, you rightfully call

(43:00):
out the ways that white supremacy play out in our
entertainment industry. If you have eyes, you see it. It's
not it's not a surprise, not a secret. The fact
that Taylor Swift cannot see that for what it is,
I think is a real problem and really highlights the
fact that Taylor Swift is not maybe read in on
these issues. And now, of course, I mean, it would
be great if Taylor Swift was just like a woke
fighter for social change, so like, you know, it'll be great,

(43:23):
but no, one, she doesn't have to be like she's
doing her thing fine, But to try to wade into
it when a black woman is talking about a white
supremacy plays out on her industry and making it about her,
that is textbook like victimized the white woman well and
beyond that, she used feminism as a weapon in her response.
She said, it's unlike you, Nikki, to tear other women down.

(43:43):
So she tried to play this holier than thou I'm
a better feminist than you are card when it was
clearly not about her, When it was not about her,
but she totally missed the mark on it. And in
critiquing Nikki getting in a fight with Nikki, I think
a lot of observers were like, oh my god, some
of my favorite badass women artists are fighting. God, please

(44:05):
get it over it. And to be fair, not to
defend that move, because that was so ignorant of Taylor.
But she did come around saying, and I quote, I
thought I was being called out. I missed the point,
I misunderstood, then misspoke. I am sorry, Nikki, And like
nobody's perfect, nobody's born woke, right. I think that was

(44:26):
a tough moment, but I'm I'm relatively pleased with how
she came around. What do you think at least? Yeah?
I agree, and Bridget You've mentioned this one, but that
instance of Taylor being the victim of Nikki's what she
interpreted as shade is so similar to the examples of

(44:47):
black women speaking out and white women being offended because
they're saying an opinion that has very little to do
with them, it's about some larger issue, but white woman
being offended by it and not as something that has
followed feminism and the historical struggle for representation and rights
and access and just like trying to be a person
in the world. That is something that has like followed

(45:09):
that struggle to just be a human, and Taylor just
didn't get it, she didn't see it, and it was
just such an odd copy paste of history where it
was just repeating itself in social media now Taylor comes
from privilege, which we have unpacked already. So you know,
is it shocking and surprising that a white, skinny, blonde

(45:30):
woman who comes from a very, very wealthy family isn't
read up on women and gender and race studies? One
oh one. No, she didn't go to college. This is
not like the person who are we are going to
learn about social movements from. However, one would think that
that access the privilege would also buy you. I don't

(45:51):
know some cultural understanding of like how things work amongst women,
and I don't think that feminism is useful if it's
only for white, privileged, blonde, skinny women. Like it's not
just about being nice to people all the time, it's
calling stuff like this out. And I think that that
was a missed opportunity for Taylor to be an ally

(46:13):
to Nikki and not just feel like you're hurting me.
That's mean, girl. You could not I mean, I could
not have put it better myself. I do I think
as one as a black woman who hosts a podcasts
about feminism that has a lot of white women listeners,
I totally see this play out all the time, every day,
all day, every day, where if you call something out

(46:35):
or you you talk about a frustration that you have.
Oftentimes it can feel like white women don't want to
hear it, or it's like it hurts their feelings or
defends them, and it feels like you can't actually speak
your truth because you don't want to offend Taylor Swift
or whatever. And again, I mean, when I saw that
interaction happened on Twitter, I thought Taylor Swift might genuinely
think that feminism is being nice to Taylor Swift and

(46:57):
if something includes being mean to Taylor Swift, not feminist
And that that interaction made me think that feminism is
just supporting and uplifting Taylor Swift and if feminism doesn't
look like that, then it's not feminism. And I think
that's what she was accusing Nikki. Oh yeah, And I
think Nikki put it perfectly by saying, this is something
you should speak out about. She responded to Taylor saying, like,
I wasn't talking about you. I don't know where you

(47:19):
got that from, but this is a problem that's bigger
than you, and it's something you should speak out about.
Did she know she apologized she came around. She's had
her own awokening it seems a few days later on Twitter.
But has she taken up that mantle now? Has she
fought for diversity in music? Now? Has she made race

(47:40):
a part of her things that she fights for? No,
she hasn't, And I would like to see that change totally.
And I think that's a really important part of this
conversation because I don't think feminism is that big of
a movement at this point where we can be revoking
people's feminist cards. We can't exactly start turning people away.
So like, we're very happy to have chiller Swiss in

(48:03):
in our ranks and in our army. However, like calling
each other out is part of what being a feminist is.
And so if she's going to get on her stage
and on her platform and call herself a feminist and
use it as a marketing tool, she's relying on a
social movement that women have fought for representation and access
to write, money, personhood. If you're going to use that

(48:25):
to sell stuff back to people, you better be aware
of the foundation on which you're building your house, because
you're building it on the backs of men and women
who have fought hard for that stuff, And you better
understand the language that you're speaking in, just like she
understood the language she speaks to young girl then when
she started her career. Yeah, I mean that's exactly what

(48:46):
I think that my biggest issue is with her. Nobody
is forcing her to use feminism as this marketing tool.
No one is saying you have to be a feminist,
have to talk about feminism and squad and this and that.
She's made a choice that that is something that she's
going to be about. You can't just take that up.
It's not just a costume and you're gonna talk the
talking about to walk the walk. Sometimes being a feminist

(49:06):
isn't fun. Sometimes being a feminist means being called a
feminist kill joy or a social justice warrior or taking
up causes. It's not very fun or luquid. It's to
take up. Sometimes it's hard work. Sometimes it's hell. But
you know you're calling yourself a feminist, you better Dan
Well be ready to walk that walk. And I don't
think you're doing that. And if you really think about her,
embrace the feminism is relatively new. Back in twelve, she

(49:28):
said she wasn't a feminist because, quote, I don't really
think about things as guys versus girls. Luckily, it seems
that squad member Lena Dunham took her under her wing
and uh had a little chat with her. Hopefully, Nikki
took her under her wing and said let's talk about
intersectional feminism. A few years later, but she evolved, like

(49:48):
so many women do, to realize that, as she put it, quote,
I didn't quite understand that saying you're a feminist is
just saying that you hope women and men will have
equal rights and equal opportunities. So she come around and
come out as a feminist. Yes, but you know, as
Jill Philipovic wrote for The Washington Post, feminism is more
than just supporting your girl friends and churning out charming

(50:09):
catch phrases about girl power. I actually liked seeing the
evolution of her going from I'm not a feminist to
embracing it. I actually like seeing how that can happen
in real time and following celebrities as they grapple with
these issues, because you know, my me coming to commons
with a feminist was a journey. I'm sure it was
a journey for all of us. And I actually applaud

(50:30):
her for not, like, you know, dying on the Hill
of anti feminism for saying, actually, it turns out that
feminism is a cool thing, and I am a feminist
after all, and showing that, like you can make that transition,
and really, you know, it's not very feminist of her.
Bridget was this past election cycle when we were kind
of counting on feminist we were kind of counting on
white women in particular to uh come out and vote,

(50:53):
and to come out and vote for the candidate who
was going to make life a little easier on all women,
the candidate who did not rag about that the assaulting women.
That one one where the hell was Taylor Swift in sixteen?
If I told you the amount of time I have
spent thinking, writing, researching, and talking about who Taylor Swift
voted for, it would blow your mind. You would be like,

(51:14):
there's like strings and paper on my apartment wall where
I've got charts, and I'm like crossing this to this
on this day. She said this, like I'm down a
rabbit hole of trying to figure this out. And here's
the thing, when all these other members of her squad,
Lena Dunham, Oh, Katy Perry is not exactly a member
of her squad, but she was stumping like crazy for Hillary. Yeah,

(51:35):
when you have all these other prominent young women not
just saying go out and vote, but being an advocate
for voting for somebody that you really really believe in.
I was like, where was Taylor. It would have taken
something subtle, right, Like, I know that she has this
country fan base. Maybe she doesn't want to alienate them.
I totally totally get it. And I'm not saying that
you have to that. I expect the people to go

(51:55):
out and be Rara, you know, stumping for Hillary Clinton
or whatever. But I do think that it wouldn't be
the worst thing in the world to say, you know what,
I'm met down with people who rag about sexual assault.
You know who did that, Donald Trump. I was running
for president, Donald Trump. Yeah. It was just noticeably mute, right.
It was a noticeable anomaly in terms of her brand

(52:18):
of being ra Ra feminism, ra Ra squad, but not
at all touching politics. And it seems like it's one
thing to abstain from going political, even in our climate
where all celebrity work is basically becoming political, and it
feels like our idols and politics have merged in a

(52:38):
way recently, that's very new. But it's another thing to
be the poster child of the Aryan supporters, like the
Aryan race, like the neo Nazi movement, and to say nothing, Well,
that might sound like a huge exaggeration, but if you
google Taylor Swift and Nazis, that's actually exactly what's going on.
So if you don't know this kind of a weird

(52:59):
thing on the Internet, it is that Taylor Swift has
for whatever reason, been embraced as this Aryan goddess by
literal Nazis and white supremacists. And this is something that
is taken over the Internet. There are so much subculture
is dedicated to it. And actually The Daily Bees published
an article earlier this year with the headline it's time
for Taylor Swift to denounce her Neo Nazi admirers. So,

(53:20):
according to Andre Anglin, who is the writer of the
white supremacist blogs the Daily Stormer, he says, first, Taylor
Swift is a pure Aryan goddess, like something out of
a classical Greek poem Athena Reborn. That's the most important thing.
It is also an established fact that Taylor Swift is
secretly a Nazi, and it's simply waiting for the right time.
When Donald Trump makes it safe for her to come

(53:40):
out and announce her Ariaan agenda to the world, probably
she will be be truth to Trump's son and they
will be crowned American royalty. So if this is out
on a leading white nationalist website and you're and you
don't say anything, I think it's a problem. Maybe she's thinking,
I don't even want to give attention to it, but
it's out there. Yeah, I mean, there's gotta be a
lot of crazy stuff that's said about you when you're

(54:01):
that famous, and picking and choosing what to respond to
is not easy. But given the climate, given what's happening,
given the violence, giving Charlottesville, given this election, to stay mute,
I mean, how do you do that when you're as
influential as she is. Choosing to sit out an election
like two thou sixteen is one thing, but choosing to

(54:22):
sit out an opportunity to proclaim your values and take
action on your values. I mean it's like she's taking polls,
you know what I mean. She seems like the most
hyper calculated candidate out there, like she will pull before
she decides what to speak out against. Definitely. And I
don't think that speaking out against Nazis should be a
controversial thing, and yet I think it might be. Right now,

(54:44):
I think most of what's problematic about Taylor all boils
down to racial issues, really and truly, if you look
at the cultural appropriation conversation around her use of those
sort of nameplate earrings and twerking in Shake It Off
the music video, some people said, well, it's at the
same as really co opting black culture because she was
sort of parroting it. I'm not sure it's that argument

(55:07):
really stands, but I kind of get it right. She
wasn't trying to say, look at me, I'm I'm I'm
Miley Cyrus. I'm actually using black culture to be cool.
She was saying, like, look at me trying on all
these different genres. Haha, aren't I a dork? You know,
different but still not cool? A little cringe E. It's
cringe E. And I think for me why it's cringe
E is that it really highlights something that I race

(55:28):
not withstand. They have a problem with her is that
she often makes a show of how like adorably bad
she is at things like, oh, I'm in front of
all these black professional dancers who are doing a great
job of dancing and I don't know what I'm doing.
Isn't that funny? And it's like, maybe it is a
racialized thing because I don't think that people of color
get the same leeway to bask in their own expressions

(55:50):
of mediocrity. And Taylor Swift does that sometimes and it
drives me nuts. Yes, yes, basking in their expressions of
media acrity. I love that because her whole thing is
you know, adorable, right, Yeah, I don't like it, Yeah,
I totally get it. The most problematic, the most problematic

(56:12):
expression of cultural appropriation one on one is Google Wildest Dreams.
That video I think went nowhere in part because people
were so horrified that, oh my gosh, is she romanticizing
African colonialism? Yes, folks, Yes, indeed she's on the African
planes okay, sort of allah colonial occupation days. And it

(56:38):
looks like a magical love story and it's just like,
are you kidding me? I mean, I almost this was
so bad. I almost felt bad for her because I'm thinking,
where where was that? Like someone in her team left
up that this got out there right, Like this was
a breach of some sort of system. She should have
someone in her team who's like pulled her aside, and
it's like, girl is the mistake control? I almost like

(57:00):
something there was no quality control. There was a failure
of something in her team, and I feel bad that
she got got duped by it or something. It's not good.
And then even the most recent video are You Ready
For It um, which we've sort of abstained from talking
about our feelings about her latest musical release, mainly because
we don't have very nice things to say. And I'm

(57:22):
ready for the whole album. I'm like looking forward to
maybe maybe it'll get better. But music aside, the video
Are You Ready For It has graffiti, layden, urban sort
of scenes that are very little Tokyo esque. There's actual
characters on the walls, and it just feels a little
bit like she's maybe headed in a Miley Cyrus Bangers

(57:42):
direction because she's basically rapping in a video Taylor is
left rapping. I don't wanna It's not good. It's not good.
It's just like, why do you have to do the
race thing? Why do you have to cross those lines
to be cool? You don't have to white women alert,
You do not need to pretend to be black in
order to come across as cool. Yeah, and she's so

(58:02):
as we said earlier, she's so talented in other ways,
Like she didn't need to pretend to work or pretend
to wrap to make a good song. In fact, I
would say doing that as a gimmicky and in terms
of your song won't be good. I think that she
should focus on her real talent and not trying to
be something she's not for a weird gimmick or joke,
maybe as retaliation. Maybe sometimes playing to your critics instead

(58:25):
of playing to your fans will take you in a
bad direction. Just a thought, just an artistic musing. But
here's the thing. Is she on the same level as
Miley Cyrus in terms of white girl fail? Oh no?
In my book, no, I haven't adopted a culture and
then denounced that same culture. You know, And honestly, I
can forgive a few slip ups here and there if
you're someone who is genuinely seems like you're interested in

(58:47):
being thoughtful and curious and willing to learn and learn
and grow. And so I think I see that in
Taylor Swift in a way that maybe I don't see
in Miley Cyrus, I agree completely, and so I want
to wrap this up by saying, this is a tough
episode to pass through. This is a tough conversation. We're
so glad to have you a Lisa joining us for
this one, because it's not easy to really break down

(59:11):
an artist like Taylor Swift, who is so impressive, so influential,
so talented and fraught. And it is okay, listeners, just
as a reminder, is actually okay to have problematic faiths.
It is okay to love their work and hold them
to a high moral standard. And like you said, bridget
to see and hope that they learn and grow so

(59:32):
we can all learn and grow together. Yeah. I don't
want to make it sound like I hate Taylor Swift.
I'm just not her biggest fan. And I think the
reason why I'm not her biggest fan is because I
see her using feminism in ways that honestly remind me
of myself many many years ago, and I want her
to be better. I wanted to be a role model
for all the other young women out there like myself

(59:53):
who were still finding their feminists footing, and I want
her to model how we can all be more inclusive
feminists and I think she has this amazing platform. She's
this amazing talented person who has harnessed the energy of
young women and validated them in ways that frankly, they
don't really get validated a lot. And I think that
she could just tweak some things and refine that and

(01:00:14):
really get there. And that's what I want to see
for her. I just want to reiterate that I think
being a fan of Taylor Swift and being a critic
of Taylor Swift it's part and parcel of the same fandom.
So if I came off maybe as a little bit
critical of Taylor, really it comes from a place that
I want to see her embrace and use the platform
in the stage that she has created for herself for

(01:00:35):
a broader and a more intersectional purpose. I think that
everyone would benefit. UM. But I also think that we're
at this cultural moment where we just can't trust white women.
Can't trust white women to come out and vote for
and support other women, we can't trust white women on juries,
and we can't trust white women to lead a lot
of companies. UM. And that's because white women have repeatedly

(01:00:57):
ignored conversations of race and us and gender and sexuality,
all the stuff that you guys so awesomely talk about
and dig into on the podcast, And we're at this
historical moment where those conversations feel most vital and most
important to our national conversation. And I think Taylor has
at a great moment in her career and in her

(01:01:19):
platform to help us have those really hard conversations. And
by the way, that's the role of a pop star.
A pop star or a celebrity really helps us negotiate
our identity in troubled times. If you look back at
all the celebrities who have been able to withstand cultural changes,
the ones who are able to join that conversation are

(01:01:41):
the ones that stay relevant. So I hope the Taylor
Swift can be able to help us. And we're the
ones who put a pop in popular culture, We're the
ones who make popular culture. We as fans look to
celebrities like Taylor to make sense of the world, ourselves,
and our identities. And I just want to see Taylor
help us reconcile all those contradictions of our culture and

(01:02:02):
this weird, bizarre time that we live in, because that's
how she stays relevant, and I want to see her
stay relevant, Elsa. It is such a pleasure to have
you on today. Thank you so much for helping us
wade through the waters of Taylor Swift our problematic Save Alisa.
Where can folks find out more about what you're up to? Yeah,
so I'm on Instagram at pop culture Pirates. On Twitter,

(01:02:24):
I'm at pop cult Pirates because pop Culture Pirate was
too long, and you can hit me up on Facebook
at Elisa Chrissinger my full name, um and if you
are interested in hearing Bridget and I deep dive more
on this topic on Taylor Swift and Problematic Base, you
can listen to strong Opinions Loosely Held, where we also
go into a bunch of pop culture topics from a

(01:02:45):
feminist perspective, UM like y h G TV explains America
and a bunch of other fun pop culture conversation. So
I hope to see some of you guys over there.
Absolutely so we want to hear from usmnty listeners. What
are your feelings on Taylor Swift? Do you find some
of what she says problematic? Do you hope for a
more woke Taylor Swift? Perhaps, do we hope for Taylor

(01:03:08):
Swift that comes around, finds her feminist footing, and especially
is better when it comes to race and intersectional feminism.
We want to hear from you, and I hope we're
not alone in this because this is a tough one
and it's here for you. So I finally stopped dragging
my feet and we went and did it. So send
us a tweet at mom Stuff Podcast, find us on

(01:03:30):
Instagram at stuff mom Never Told You, or send us
an email if you've got to unpack even a lengthier
thought at mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com.