Swift should just shake it off
Netflix feud asymmetrical warfare. Menon, Entertainment,
Taylor Swift is one of the greatest singer-songwriters of her generation.
But away from the studio and the sold-out stadiums and her social media safe spaces, where her fans rival the QAnon kooks for unhinged devotion, her skin is thinner than graphene.
Case in point: she declared war on Netflix this week over a silly joke in the show “Ginny & Georgia,” which stars women and is written by women. In the season finale, in a scene about sex lives, one female character asks another female character, “What do you care? You go through men faster than Taylor Swift.”
That throwaway line hit the superstar like a screeching foul ball up the third-base line.
“Hey Ginny & Georgia, 2010 called and it wants its lazy, deeply sexist joke back,” Swift tweeted, perhaps unaware that any setup in which a random yesteryear calls to get something back is in itself pretty lazy. “How about we stop degrading hard working women by defining this horses—t as FuNnY. Also, @netflix after Miss Americana this outfit doesn’t look cute on you ... Happy Women’s History Month I guess.”
All I could do was shake off her audacity.
Granted, the joke does not score high on the originality scale. But that’s only because it’s too obvious, which in turn is because it is based in consensus reality. If the script had, “You go through men faster than Sharon Osbourne,” viewers would be like … Huh?
Sharon and Ozzy have been married since the War of 1812.
The joke would make no sense whatsoever.
But starting circa 2008, Ms. Swift has dated quite a few lads, including Joe Jonas, Taylor Lautner, John Mayer, Jake Gyllenhaal, Conor Kennedy, Harry Styles, Calvin Harris and Tom Hiddleston, to say nothing of the lesser known names in between. And until recently, she made a spectacle of her dating life. She has included more clues about exes in song lyrics than the Zodiac Killer put into his ciphers. Put it this way: she’s had more boyfriends than I’ve had winter coats.
If anyone has exploited Taylor Swift’s dating life, it is Taylor Swift.
And you know what? More power to her. I admire her unwillingness to settle for any relationship that does not bring 100 per cent satisfaction on every emotional and quotidian level. I salute her for playing the boldface field until she appears to have got it right with this Joe Alwyn. I wish them a lifetime of joy and offspring who are musically gifted and Britishly aloof.
God knows they will have gorgeous children. But, hopefully, those kids won’t be crybabies.
To accuse female screenwriters on a new show of being “deeply sexist” and “degrading hard working women” just because you are insulted by a benign joke is a bit much, even for someone who loves to play the victim. This is asymmetrical warfare Swift started this week and she knows it. Her army of Swifties — and just about every virtue-signaling celebrity on social media — is taking up rhetorical arms and now unfairly slagging Netflix and “Ginny & Georgia.”
And for Swift to try to frame all of this with “Women’s History Month” is disgraceful to every woman who has ever suffered real sexism and abuse. A line of dialogue that says, “You go through men faster than Taylor Swift” is not “slut-shaming” — it’s just basic math.
You take the years and divide it by the doomed soul mates. Math.
I really think Swift needs to feud with someone or something the way the rest of us need oxygen. There is no other logical explanation. While forever claiming to be bullied, she’s often the one doing the bullying. One of the most powerful people in the world just lost her mind over a joke. Swift is an artist who presumably understands the value of creative expression. I doubt she’d want anyone to tell her what she can and can’t write. But here she is punching down and siccing her rabid fans on mostly unknown writers on a rookie show who merely turned her verifiable dating history into a silly one-liner. It’s like watching The Rock destroy a McDonald’s staffer because there weren’t enough pickles on his Big Mac.
As “Respect Taylor Swift” started trending this week, and Swifties went nuclear with their vengeance, it was hard to reconcile the two Taylor Swifts that now exist in popular culture. One is a ferociously talented musician who has dominated her craft for years. The other is an insecure and defensive monster who will not hesitate to play any -ism card if and when her brittle sensibilities are rattled by even the most minor of transgressions.
The only controversy here is that Taylor Swift can’t take a joke.
How about we stop degrading real hard working women with horseshit.