Miss Americana

[osprey_archer]

Continuing with my general Taylor Swift theme this week, I watched Lana Wilson’s Miss Americana, which I’ve been meaning to see since it came out… gosh, only last January? What a long, long, long year this has been.

Anyway, this is a documentary that is a retrospective about Swift’s career to date and her growth as a person. She comments that her desire to please people was a driving force in her early career (the intoxicating experience of applause, etc), and this is a quality that’s really present in the interview clips that she shows - what’s interesting is that it’s not visible in her songs, like those served as vents for unacceptable feelings of rage, pain, jealousy, etc. Anything a girl is not supposed to express because it’s not “nice.”

Swift mentions working to “deprogram the misogyny in my brain” - “there is no such thing as a bitch, there is no such thing as a slut,” women are not one-dimensional cutouts but complicated, messy people. “We don’t want to be condemned for being multifaceted.”

And it strikes me that one way to read her body of work is that it starts with an exploration of her own multifaceted nature, and there’s been a process since then of working to extend that understanding that same emotional messiness in other people. (This documentary is pre-folklore, but I think this is really visible in folklore, which is far less autobiographical than many of Swift’s other albums - there are still songs that feel autobiographical, but also songs about exploring other people’s lives and perspectives.)

Another thing that the documentary led me to reflect on, particularly because Swift started her career so young - she was only sixteen when she hit the big time - is that when tabloids scream about female celebrities being OUT OF CONTROL!!!!, often the celebrities in question are performing totally age-appropriate figuring-themselves-out behavior.

There seems to be a cultural expectation, which hasn’t changed all that since Jane Austen was condemning teenage Lydia for being too flighty, that women should be totally grown up more or less the moment they hit sexual maturity. In fact, I think in some ways the emphasis on strong women has actually exacerbated it, because “I don’t know who I am or what I want because I am sixteen/nineteen/twenty-two” is not a particularly strong look. I realize that there’s been some attempt to redefine strong to mean real! three-dimensional! messy! But, let’s be real, if you have to actually explain that when you say strong you don’t actually MEAN strong… maybe you should just say “real, three-dimensional, messy” instead.

I also realized as I was watching this that I somehow missed Swift’s 2019 album Lover. How??? But then I realized that it came out in August 2019 when I was in the thick of writing Honeytrap and more or less living in the winter of 1959-1960, so that explains it.

Comments

[asakiyume]

I heartily agree with what you say about teenage female celebrities figuring things out and not being OUT OF CONTROL!!! at all--or at least, no more so than any other teenagers. And also what you say about women somehow being supposed to know it all and get it all right, in terms of relationships/intimacy, as soon as they hit puberty, whereas boys? Hey, drag that adolescence on into your thirties--why not??

And I feel like in part it goes back to that really boring, but still really alive-and-kicking, thing where society sees sexual experience as something that marks men's prowess, cleverness, and appeal, but marks women as slutty, cheap, and shallow. (And yeah, I know we have strands in our culture that fight that, and it's not what we universally believe by any means, but it's still *there*.) It came up when we were watching TV last night: there was a character in the series, an undercover cop, who was trying to infiltrate a criminal organization by posing as a stripper. She comes on to one of the criminals (actually the male lead in the show), and we see them kissing, and the implication is that then they take it to bed. "It's kind of harsh that she should have to sleep with that guy for her undercover operation," Wakanomori said, and I thought--and then said, "Huh; that's interesting; I don't think people ever think it's 'harsh' when a guy has to sleep with a woman as part of an undercover operation." So anyway.

In conclusion, I like Taylor Swift :-) I enjoy her songs a lot, and I think she seems like an interesting, real person.

[osprey_archer]

Yeah, I think there's much more cultural space for men to make mistakes and take their time growing up - the "manchild" label doesn't even really kick in till a guy hits his thirties; guys in their twenties are expected to be figuring it out, in a way that we punish girls for even when they're still in their teens.

It's also considered kind of endearing for men to be sort of dopey - "himbo" is generally a term of affection ("he's such a himbo" = "he's so endearingly dumb and I love it"). There isn't the same cultural space for women to be stupid or make mistakes.

Somehow in movies and shows, whenever a guy has to sleep with a woman for an undercover operation, she's a total fox he wants to bang anyway. Maybe shows should sometimes have their undercover male cops sleep with women they'd really rather not sleep with, just for parity.

[asakiyume]

Maybe shows should sometimes have their undercover male cops sleep with women they'd really rather not sleep with, just for parity.

Absolutely!

[calandrahunter]

""It's kind of harsh that she should have to sleep with that guy for her undercover operation," Wakanomori said, and I thought--and then said, "Huh; that's interesting; I don't think people ever think it's 'harsh' when a guy has to sleep with a woman as part of an undercover operation." So anyway. "

I think that also ties in with the societal assumption that men are always up for sex, so obviously some guy having to sleep with a woman as part of the job is totally a perk.

[asakiyume]

definitely

[osprey_archer]

Yes, exactly. To the point where I wonder if people would even buy it that a straight (or bi - at any rate, interested in women) male character really didn't want to sleep this week's Sexy Female Criminal. There might be an audience reaction of "His mouth says no but COME ON of course he means yes."

[calandrahunter]

Oh, I bet there would definitely be an audience reaction of 'oh come on, what's wrong him' and calling him a wimp/gay/etc.

[ladyherenya]

This got me thinking about how society warns young women about certain serious consequences (sexual assault, pregnancy). But some of those messages miss the mark (nitpicking about whether girls' clothes are modest enough doesn't actually keep girls safe) or they don't take into account social change (access to contraception, changes in attitudes to unmarried couples living together, etc). And so in the end the message actually received is: "Young woman must never take any risks ever".

[asakiyume]

I agree, and yet strangely, the most serious talk about sexual danger that I ever had with any of my kids was the one I gave my 18-year-old son when he was dating a 16-year-old girl. They were both in high school, but the way their ages fell, he was technically no longer a minor, but she was, which meant if they got intimate, it would be possible for someone to antagonistically characterize it as statutory rape. I don't know if he thought I was crazy when I brought it up... in any case, they were together long enough for her to become a legally consenting adult, and although they went their separate ways, they've stayed friendly ever since. (Hmmm, this comment has wandered off down memory lane. I agree with what you said, in any case!)

[osprey_archer]

At the university where I attended grad school, all the stalls in the women's bathrooms had signs about What to Do If You're Sexually Assaulted. It was clearly meant to warn young women about risks, but it was so pervasive that I think it tended to create an atmosphere of fear and maybe resignation - like, if sexual assault is SO common that you have to have signs in EVERY restroom, why bother trying to be careful, clearly it's a matter of unavoidable fate.

I also really wondered if the men's bathrooms were plastered with signs about How Not to Sexually Assault Someone. If anyone ought to be crushed by pervasive messaging, surely it's the potential perpetrators rather than the potential victims.

[calandrahunter]

"when tabloids scream about female celebrities being OUT OF CONTROL!!!!, often the celebrities in question are performing totally age-appropriate figuring-themselves-out behavior."

Considering how the tabloids treated Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, yep...there's no way you can win as a teenage female popstar, and even if you behave perfectly the tabloids end up waiting for you to put a foot out of line. Because tabloids love success but they love someone successful failing even harder.

[osprey_archer]

Yeah. What would a male celebrity even have to do to get headlines about how he's OUT OF CONTROL? I feel like it would involve literally setting a building on fire or something.

[calandrahunter]

Hm, I think you'd have to start with the kind of male popstar who had the same squeaky clean image as Britney and Taylor, so a young start and in pop. So I'm thinking boyband members, or guys like the Jonas Brothers and Hanson.

Like, if one of the Jonas Brothers had gone on a coke-and-alcohol bender at the height of their teeniebopper fame, I think there would've been some shock and outrage from the tabloids.

(Of course, when male popstars who started with the clean nice boy image then grow up and rebel against it, there's also a good chance that other magazines will approve, because they'd finally be behaving like A Proper Man.)