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Taylor Swift: Miss Americana
Available on Netflix SA
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Critics have been fawning over a new Taylor Swift documentary on Netflix. Called Miss Americana, it’s pitched as a “raw and emotionally revealing look at one of the most iconic artists of our time”. It shows Swift as she decides to make her political stance known, something she has hitherto not done.
This comes in the form of backing two Democratic senators during the US midterm election in 2018. Swift says she felt she couldn’t voice her opinions earlier because her whole life she had been trying to be “the good girl”, who doesn’t “force her opinions on anyone”.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy it. All of Swift’s peers – Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus – have clear Democratic affiliations and publicly backed Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election; why did Swift feel like she couldn’t? A lot of it is put down to the fact that she comes from Nashville in Tennessee and has a country music background – something usually associated with Republican voters.
But Swift broke into pop a decade ago, and has legions of fans across the spectrum, so is it really so radical that she doesn’t back a Republican? Pop stars weighing in politically is as old as time, and has almost become a cliché.
I’ve got to go with Ricky Gervais on this when he said to the actors present at the Golden Globe awards recently: “So if you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg. So if you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent, and your God and f*** off, okay?”
I guess singers have as much of a right as any uninformed asshole on Twitter to add their voice to the fray, I just don’t know why it warrants a documentary.
Sorry, Swifties, I am as much a fan of Lover as the rest of you, but Miss Americana just left me unimpressed.
