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I vaguely remember some right-wingers (at least Walt Bismarck for sure) making the argument a couple of months ago that it’s a dumb mistake on the part of some(?) Republicans to agitate against Taylor Swift due to her activism. Their reasoning was that it doesn’t make political sense to alienate the swifties, as most of them are just average women who don’t necessarily reject traditional gender norms and aren’t hardliner wokes. In light of recent election results, what can we make of this argument in retrospect?
The right-wing was vindicated. The argument was that, in spite of Taylor Swift's political endorsements, what Taylor Swift herself represents is far more important than political endorsements. She's not a progressive or feminist icon, she's the prom queen getting with the jock football player. So some on the DR perceived a return to normalcy with Swift's fame, dubbing her Aryan princess as a playful acknowledgment of a sort of reversion from the pop-culture dominated ressentiment towards the jock and the prom queen that is foundational to wokeness.
So with Swift's fame the DR was right to pick up on it as a signal for a "return to normalcy" and a looming, catastrophic defeat of Wokeness. We are past peak wokeness. Alienating Swifties for Swift's political endorsements is missing the forest for the trees. Swift does represent a retreat of wokeness, a return to normalcy from the worship of the weak and ugly and broken.
I'm not sure about that. Taylor Swift is just one of many conventionally attractive massive female pop stars of the last 25 years, some others being Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Lana Del Rey - some of whom have portrayed themselves garishly on occasion, but none of whom could be characterized as embodying the worship of the weak, ugly, and broken. Even at the very height of wokism, pop music was full of conventionally attractive women singing about the usual pop music topics of love and relationships in ways that cannot be described as woke. There have perhaps been musicians who did celebrate the weak, ugly, and broken during that time, but from what I can tell the top pop stars were never like that in their music and presentation, even though some of them did espouse wokism in their professed political views. Taylor Swift is not a reversion to pre-woke kinds of music and presentation, since wokism never significantly affected the music and presentation of the top of the pop charts to begin with.
The point isn't that she's a white pop star or she happens to be more famous than the others, add to your list someone like Miley Cyrus, and certainly Lady Gaga, those pop stars play a persona that's basically a postmodern critique of their conventional attractiveness. They make themselves look disgusting as part of their act, maybe they even get an audience by appealing to ugly people through uglifying themselves and yet attaining fame and acclaim. It certainly isn't the case that Swift even has more natural beauty than some of the other examples.
Taylor Swift's persona is "The Popular Girl", which all those other pop stars you mention try to subvert by dressing and acting in a way that openly defies conventional attractiveness or how a girl is supposed to behave. She doesn't appeal to her audience by making herself look or behave ugly, which does stand out among those other pop stars. Probably sans Britney Spears in her prime, but that would only solidify my point of a "return to normalcy" where girls want to be the prettiest and most popular rather than the most... Lady Gaga.
Taylor Swift fandom is white-coded in a way that is unlike any of those other pop stars because Swift plays the "white popular girl" archetype. I happened to be watching Ocean's 8 today and one of the characters made a quip that the Indian character was "so white" because she was excited Swift was going to be at the Met Gala.
If Swift behaved like Miley Cryus or Lady Gaga you would have a point, but she behaves very differently from them and it's meaningful that young girls are looking towards a Swift- the "popular girl" archetype rather than the contrived acts of those other pop stars which ham up ugliness to appeal to an audience.
The way it seems to me, the only pop star out of the ones I mentioned who even comes close to subverting conventional standards of female attractiveness is Lady Gaga, and even she makes sure to make herself look hot and to behave in at least some feminine ways in all of her videos that I've seen.
Katy Perry and Lana Del Rey's personas are practically retro male fantasies - hyper-feminine, dolled up, pouty.
It is possible that what I find hot in women is just different than what you find hot, especially when it comes to behavior. I am turned on by Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Lana Del Rey's personas, whereas you might not be. I find them to be seductive in a feminine way.
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