Oh, no! Taylor Swift is happily in love and enjoys having sex with her well endowed fiancé! The horror! The horror!
Her latest album The Life of a Showgirl got the predictable pearl-clutching. Gasps were especially loud from those offended by her highly suggestive “Wood,” forgetting the music they listened to as kids. (That goes for your rock idols too, good Christian MAGA folks.) But a surprising amount of outrage comes from the other side of the political spectrum. TikTok is filled with jilted leftist Swifties. Some see her profession of love for Travis Kelce as “heteronormative.” (Sorry, Gaylors.) They denounce her wish to “have a couple kids” and “a driveway with a basketball hoop” as tradwifery. Mostly, they’re upset that she isn’t using her platform and money in the manner they demand. Even if she did a cover of Chumbawumba’s “Nazi” and spent her millions to pay off people’s medical debt, they still wouldn’t be happy.
I believe there are several points Taylor’s critics—and supporters—are missing.
First, joy is a form of resistance. Throughout history, oppressed groups used music and dance to preserve their history and humanity and to raise their spirits in the most brutal of conditions. Taylor Swift and other musicians owe their careers to the enslaved Black people whose work songs are the foundation of American popular music. Despite centuries of mockery, whitewashing, and commercialization, the underlying message of those original songs remains “You won’t break me.”
This attitude remains necessary today. Tyrants use fear to impose loyalty, but joy shows our refusal to be intimidated. Revolutionary Emma Goldman is often quoted as saying, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be a part of your revolution.” The actual quote from her autobiography makes it clearer.
At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause. I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it.
The Life of a Showgirl also points to the end of celebrity culture. As institutions crumble around us, so has the faith in celebrities. Misstatements and conspicuous displays of wealth that were overlooked before now seem grotesque in the face of cruelty and economic deprivation. It’s no longer romantic to fly from a concert in Tokyo to a future husband’s Super Bowl game when people can’t afford to fill their gas tank.
Furthermore, people hunger for authenticity at a time when everything seems manufactured and AI-generated. They want real connection, not parasocial relationships. They want the intimacy of small venues, not pay thousands to be tossed into football stadium crowds with an LED bracelet someone else controls to make you part of the scenery. They want art that speaks directly to them, not something determined by marketing departments and corporate sponsors. They desire grit over polish, realism over fantasy, and honesty over artifice.
We’ve seen these shifts many times before in art. The Beatles broke up as the singer-songwriters of the 1970s came to the forefront. The hair metal and synth pop of the 1980s gave way to grunge and hip-hop. Even the rise of indie authors is a reaction to commercial fiction, especially when some of the biggest authors have been shown to have terrible beliefs. All art is the product of their times.
The Life of a Showgirl is an enjoyable album, but it represents an era that is coming to an end. The next big music star isn’t Sabrina Carpenter or Chappell Roan. Right now, she may be busking at subway stations or playing at house parties, strumming a second-hand guitar, and singing lyrics that speak directly to people’s hearts. In difficult times, we need authentic art that inspires courage, resistance, and joy.
