Taylor Swift is ready to speak now

Taylor Swift sings about youth mobilization, endorses Democrats on Instagram and makes music videos with LGBTQ icons. She's complex, she's cool, she's an alpha type.<br /><br />The megastar hasn't always made such explicit statements, though. Lana Wilson's new documentary, "Taylor Swift: Miss Americana," charts Swift's journey from a "careful daughter" to a more self-aware pop feminist with a lot to say -- about politics and beyond.<br />Indeed, the movie may be short -- 85 minutes -- but it covers meaningful territory: Swift's vulnerability ("My entire moral code, as a kid and now, is a need to be thought of as good," she admits); her eventual defiance of the same conservative mores that banished her idols, the Dixie Chicks, from the country music scene in 2003; her gradual steps toward reckoning with the at times polarizing position she occupies in, well, Americana.<br />To dive more deeply into some of these topics, I recently spoke with Claire Sisco King, an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee -- Swift's adopted home state. The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.<br />Your work focuses largely on gender, sexuality and race in the context of celebrity culture. What are the distinct ways Taylor Swift fits into conversations on identity?<br />One of the interesting things about Swift is that we've seen a lot of transitions throughout her career. When she began, she was associated primarily with country music, and then she crossed over to pop. So we've seen a genre shift. But we've also seen a shift in terms of the themes of her music as she's grown and, I think, anticipated the aging of her fans. So she presents a really useful opportunity to think about different cultural expectations around celebrity and public performances of white femininity over time.<br />Celebrity culture is often written off as trivial -- as a distraction from more pertinent issues. But I think that it behooves us to take it seriously, because so many people do draw meaning and value from it in their everyday lives. As a cultural critic, one of my jobs is to think about the value of celebrity culture, and what positive resources audiences can garner from a figure like Swift. At the same time, we need to be aware of the potentially limiting or problematic messages we take in from celebrity culture on such a regular basis.<br />For many people, the mere mention of Swift's name triggers an immediate, almost visceral reaction. Why is that?<br />I think that there are many complex, layered reasons for the strong reactions people have to Swift. Part of it relates to a larger disdain toward things associated with the feminine and femininity. There's a kind of persistent misogyny in our culture, and at least historically, Swift's persona has really leaned into very traditional forms of femininity.<br />More here: http://hocdethi.blogspot.com