Movie Review: ‘Miss Americana’ Shows Taylor Swift’s Feminine Quandary

It looked a bit comical from a distance when Kanye West bigfooted Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards with his “Imma let you finish” interposition. But Swift, then 19, was genuinely crushed: “I thought that they were booing me,” she explains now. Of course! A male artist would have allowed his aggression to surge, gotten angry, ordered Ye to step off, bro. Swift, though, is definitively feminine. She is eager, indeed anxious, about being pleasing. “For someone who has built their whole belief system on getting people to clap for you,” she says, “the whole crowd booing is a pretty formative experience.”

Swift doesn’t add this, indeed can’t add this because some things can’t be said, but the racial element must have been particularly unnerving. A black artist interrupted her to say that another black artist (Beyoncé) had been robbed of the trophy Swift was holding. She must have felt stamped a beneficiary of racism and that the crowd agreed with West. What could she do except disintegrate?

About the Author

Kyle Smith

Kyle Smith is the film critic for the Wall Street Journal.

Featured Tags

It looked a bit comical from a distance when Kanye West bigfooted Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards with his “Imma let you finish” interposition. But Swift, then 19, was genuinely crushed: “I thought that they were booing me,” she explains now. Of course! A male artist would have allowed his aggression to surge, gotten angry, ordered Ye to step off, bro. Swift, though, is definitively feminine. She is eager, indeed anxious, about being pleasing. “For someone who has built their whole belief system on getting people to clap for you,” she says, “the whole crowd booing is a pretty formative experience.”

Swift doesn’t add this, indeed can’t add this because some things can’t be said, but the racial element must have been particularly unnerving. A black artist interrupted her to say that another black artist (Beyoncé) had been robbed of the trophy Swift was holding. She must have felt stamped a beneficiary of racism and that the crowd agreed with West. What could she do except disintegrate?