Debate | Issue 9 | Trending | 2021

I’m Sorry, Taylor Swift By Alana McConnell (she/her), illustrated by Kwok Yi Lee (he/him)

We’ve done Taylor Swift dirty. And she’s not the exception, with Selena, Britney, Kesha, Lindsay, and Paris all going through hell and back. They’ve been through it, from traumatising conservatorships, leaked sex tapes, mocking mental health issues, slut-shaming and body-shaming, and our society’s collective obsession with virginity and purity of young women. Why is it that starlets tend to be the ones who face the largest backlash and are held to back-breaking standards? Is it reflective of our unresolved wider issues with women as a whole? Was my past-disdain of Taylor Swift a sign of internalised misogyny? It’s Britney Spears being grilled on live TV when she was a new voice as to whether she was still a virgin, as if the public deserved to know. It’s Kesha who has been locked in a horrible legal battle since 2014 fighting Dr. Luke for physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Or Paris Hilton being shamed by David Letterman for her stint in prison as the crowd laughs along. We revel in the fragile tipping point into breakdown of these starlets, gleefully witnessing Amanda Bynes’ Twitter rants, Lindsay’s fluctuating dress size, or something as mild as a female celebrity deciding not to wear makeup on her supermarket outing (prompting concerns she is haggard, sick, or let herself go). I can’t write this article and not mention the incessant slutshaming of Taylor Swift, the media frenzy of her dating life, Taylor becoming the butt of the joke about “going through men” and using them for writing material. These women have had lengthy careers, usually starting out as adolescents, being under public scrutiny as they grew up and lived their lives, locked in a straightjacket that prohibited mistakes and imperfection. We’ve held these women to impossible

We’ve held these women to impossible standards in another universe to their male counterparts, who are constantly given permission to run wild and even spread carnage with no tangible consequences. standards in another universe to their male counterparts, who are constantly given permission to run wild and even spread carnage with no tangible consequences. We expect female celebrities to be perfect, virginal, mysterious, interesting, and worthy of our attention. We don’t allow them to age, to gain weight, to be too sexy, or not sexy enough. I’m guilty of writing Taylor Swift off. I didn’t want to be considered a stereotypical white girl, and I turned my nose up at basic pop music (I was a twat). I found her image to be too squeaky clean and inaccessible. Her insanely large discography was also slightly intimidating. Where did you start? The tides turned only recently, the perfect storm of my painful first breakup along with Taylor’s close collaboration with my favourite’s Bon Iver and The National. Suddenly, Taylor’s tracks about love and loss and loneliness hit me like a truck. I found myself in a state of longing and wallowing, listening to ‘this is me trying’, a track wrought with emotional vulnerability, expressions of regret, struggles with addiction, and mental health. My alienation after the breakup was alleviated in a significant way. As I watched Taylor perform, her genuine anguish and emotional

11