There are some progressives out there who are livid about Taylor Swift’s latest boyfriend.
I know it will shock you that I don’t follow Swift news much, but apparently the new guy she’s dating has had his own share of controversies in years past — some violations of the woke or PC code, and some genuinely crass, vulgar, or proudly provocative behavior. Some fans have started a social-media campaign, urging Swift to “reflect on the impact of your own and your associates’ behavior and engage in genuine reflection” — and, presumably, end the relationship.
If your immediate response is, “I don’t care,” I get it, but I think what we’re seeing here has two intriguing facets:
A) Taylor Swift, otherwise a member of the U.S. pop-culture royalty in good standing, doesn’t see any of her boyfriend’s past controversies as dealbreakers, and as far as we can tell, is as smitten as ever. “The heart wants what it wants,” which is romantic if you quote Emily Dickinson saying it or creepy if you quote Woody Allen saying it. The actions of Swift’s boyfriend are sorts of things are supposed to be career-killers and/or get you ejected from reflexively left-leaning American high society, carrying the cultural death penalty, and Swift is effectively declaring, “Nah.”
B) Some vocal segment of Swift’s fans perceive this as a serious betrayal. I think the appropriate response when someone says you shouldn’t love or be attracted to the person you love or are attracted to is, “Get lost. I’m the one in the relationship, not you.” There is something bizarrely possessive about fans believing they have some sort of veto power over a celebrity’s romantic relationship. But our modern era of superfans is often cult-like, something that I suspect reflects a displaced need to worship that used to be filled by organized religion. We’re a culture that is desperate to believe in something or someone, and having knocked the statues of saints off their pedestals, we’ve replaced them with celebrities because they look good, sing or act or dance well, and have cultivated a charismatic persona we find appealing.
Then again, Taylor Swift’s public persona is heavily wrapped up in her relationships. Her fanbase is more gender balanced than I expected, but I suspect girls and young women become her fans because Swift’s songs often channel and reflect their feelings about love and relationships and the various stages — the first excitement of a crush, the thrilling affirmation of mutual attraction, the tension of a relationship getting more complicated, the messy breakup, and the insistence that she’s learned something valuable from the whole experience . . . over and over and over again. In a strange way, Swift’s tumultuous relationship history may be a reassuring thought to her fans — that if a beautiful mega-superstar with all the money in the world has trouble making a relationship work in the long term, there’s no shame in their own relationship difficulties.
Last night, I watched Air, and really liked Matt Damon’s climactic monologue/pitch as a Nike marketing executive telling the rookie Michael Jordan what’s going to happen in his career:
I’m going to look you in the eyes and I’m gonna tell you the future. You were cut from your high school basketball team. You willed your way to the NBA. You’re gonna win championships. It’s an American story, and that’s why Americans are gonna love it. People are going to build you up, and God are they going to, because when you’re great and new, we love you. Man, we’ll build you up into something that doesn’t even exist. You’re going to change the f***ing world. But you know what? Once they’ve built you as high as they possibly can, they’re gonna tear you back down – it’s the most predictable pattern. We build you into something that doesn’t exist, and that means you have to try to be that thing all day, every day. That’s how it works. And we do it again, and again, and again. And I’m going to tell you the truth. You’re going to be attacked, betrayed, exposed and humiliated. And you’d survive that. A lot of people can climb that mountain. It’s the way down that breaks them, ’cause that’s the moment when you are truly alone. And what would you do then? Can you summon the will to fight on, through all the pain, and rise again? Who are you Michael? That will be the defining question of your life. And I think you already know the answer, and that’s why we’re all here. A shoe is just a shoe until somebody steps into it. Then it has meaning. The rest of us just want a chance to touch that greatness. [Emphasis added.]
Being a celebrity means, in almost if not all cases, some version of that roller-coaster, of being beloved for a period and then suddenly exposed and vilified for a subsequent period. Many, but not all celebrities, figure out how to return to fame with a glorious comeback narrative.
The new wrinkle is that the modern woke movement has endless sins and no established path to repentance or forgiveness. These complaints about the boyfriend are the warning shots to Swift that she can’t be involved with a guy whom the cultural Left deems a sinner and an untouchable.
We’ve seen the Left turn on a dime in its opinion on Elon Musk, J. K. Rowling, Dave Chappelle, and even Caitlyn Jenner. Maybe Swift won’t get tarred as “anti-woke” or right-wing. She’s probably too big to cancel. But that doesn’t mean that a bunch of outspoken woke progressives aren’t dumb enough to try.