America’s Sweetheart. Serial Dater. The Queen of Country. HBIC of the #Squad. Taylor Swift has been called all these things, but never alone. Of all these epitaphs, that is perhaps the most fitting.
Miss Americana delivers a raw, emotional look at the evolution behind one of music’s biggest stars. The documentary isn’t a biopic of Swift’s rise from small town girl to American royalty, nor is it a discourse on her venerable creative powers. Instead, the film straddles the dark era of Reputation and the sunshine-filled Lover to depict Swift’s transformative psyche. Fans watch as she plummets from America’s “Good Girl” status to a woman so hated that #TaylorSwiftisOverParty trends internationally.
“I had to deconstruct an entire belief system,” she says, blue eyes shimmering with the struggle that underlies the entire film.
Swift describes how, for 13 years, she was consumed by the need for others’ approval. When her album didn’t make the Grammy nominations, she blamed herself for not making a better one. When tabloids called her fat, she starved herself. Throughout her career, Swift followed the rules laid out by label executives, “a nice girl doesn’t force their opinions on people. A nice girl smiles and waves and says, ‘thank you.’”
The latter was most evident after the 2009 MTV scandal with Kanye West, where, in clips of old interview footage, she delicately fends off reporters’ attempts to start a feud. “I don’t know him and I don’t want to start anything,” 19-year old Taylor says.
Unfortunately, the scandal resurfaced years later with the vulgar lyrics of West’s song, “Famous.” When Swift spoke out, she was shamed by the press and angry Twitter users for playing the victim. She was so bombarded with hate from others that she began to doubt her identity. Swift said her moral code was centered on “a need to be thought of as good,” which included both her work ethic and her character. So, she was utterly destroyed when people went beyond her talent to attack her nature, calling her “vile” and “wicked.”
Swift had lost more than the respect she so desperately craved, she had lost sight of who she was. In a poignant moment, Swift, dressed in sweats and slumped defeatedly on a couch, confesses to her mother that she and many other songwriters get into music because “the sound of people clapping make[s] us forget about how much we feel like we aren’t good enough. And I’ve been doing this for 15 years and I’m so tired of it, I’m so tired,” her voice cracks “it feels like more than music now.”
The moment is a familiar one, even to us mortals. It is reminiscent of the times we as teenage girls sat on our beds, crying to our mothers about how cruel the world is, and how we fear our places in it. For Swift, this existential crisis played out on a larger scale. After winning her second Grammy, she was hit with the realization that she had accomplished what she set out to do – so what was next? In a somber voiceover, Swift recalled thinking how she had no one to turn to who could relate, “shouldn’t I have someone to call?” she wondered.
This loneliness enveloped Swift during her year-long exile from public life, which was triggered by the Kanye feud. She felt bitter, angry, and “like a wounded animal.” But like the proverbial phoenix who rises from the ashes, Swift emerged from her darkest time to become even stronger.
She launched Reputation with the blazing fanfare of a self-assured woman determined to show the world that she had a voice, and that she wasn’t afraid to roar. Swift also used her newfound strength to encourage young voters to register. And after years of silence on politics, Swift was standing up for the rights of abused women and LGBTQ+ people. Miss Americana shows that this wasn’t a flippant bid for popularity or a PR stunt. During a conference with her managers and parents, Swift argues passionately that she “will be on the right side of history.” Nearly in tears, she tells her Dad that she will use her clout to oppose Republican senator Marsha Blackburn, no matter the cost to her career or personal safety, because “this is about basic human rights.” Swift adamantly refutes Blackburn’s claims that her policies are representative of Tennessee Christian values.
“I live in Tennessee, I am Christian, and that is not what we stand for. I need to do this. I am doing this,” she tells her Dad.
Like with everything she does, Taylor Swift faced media backlash for her political activism. But now she no longer needs the approval of others to succeed. Taylor Swift knows herself, and she knows what she is doing is right.
“I feel really good about not being muzzled anymore, and it was my own doing. But I’ve educated myself now, and I’m ready to take the masking tape off – forever.”
With the breathy melody of “The Archer” drumming over the last scene, we see Taylor Swift take the stage. A new era, a new woman.