While Katie does not chastise Swift forpotentially having a sex life, she asserts that both talking about her sexual practices and makingmoney from it would make Swift a bad role model. This carves out a limited place for femalemusicians, allowing them to sing about chaste heterosexual romance but to never acknowledgedesire.

Back on topic, if more people listened to Mean, I think it would actually prevent suicides.Taylor not only writes and performs amazing songs, but she also saves lives

wift is centrally depicted, in both this video and in her public image, as a “proper girl”, one whoachieves popularity and happiness through avoiding “inappropriate” influences (such as partiesor sexually active boys) and through maintaining an image of ultra-feminine innocence.

emure white femininity,

t privileges “traditional values” suc

She isn’t whoring herself out like a lot of othergirls we see’

That Swift may be replacing Dylan feels a bit like reparations. D

ob Dylan. Like him, she hadten albums out (including four live albums); also, like Dylan at 29, she had alreadycycled through several significant changes of genre. Throughout the 1960s, D

ylor Swift’s believableinnocence is tied to white privilege. And, for women in the pop industry, it’s always atough sell to convince audiences that they are the producers of their words, images,and sounds, especially when they are young. 114 M. Fogarty and G. Arnold

Taylor Swift is the girl-next-door/millionaire, the hopeless romantic/savvy business-woman, and a silly teenager/serious adult singer-songwriter.

‘She’s got the poise of awax figure!

INTRODUCTIONAre You Ready for It? Re-EvaluatingTaylor SwiftMary Fogarty and Gina ArnoldHalf of me—an intangible half—is alive;the other part has gone I don’t know where—…I amble the library stacks and get lost in YA;I want to go home, paint my nails until they iridesce,clamp on my headphones, and pray to Taylor Swift.“(Epigram 42)” Stephanie Burt, After Callimachus (2020)Taylor Swift is a monument to the idea that there once was a place called America. Sherecalls an old American dream—

Swift cannot regain control of her back catalogue, she can only attempt to displace it in the marketplace

Except for the sheer magnitude of the latter donation, none of these philanthropic activities have been clearly associated with any one institution for any significant period of time.

wift’s business pursuits are primarily focused within the realm of music—her own music, as mentioned above

nd profiting from every part of the process, including delivery to the homes of her fans.

her fans spending endless hours speculating about them

Andrea Swift has played a role in 13 Management—Swift’s team that handles promotion, album design, video production, and other aspects of her career—and she is listed, along with Taylor, as one of several, ‘executive producers’ for the Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour concert film (Dugdale Citation2018). And Scott Swift’s initial stake in his daughter’s record label, which may have been guided by the best of intentions, would prove to be fraught with dangers in the twisted,

In the case of Taylor Swift, who would like to lay claim to the idea that she has been the driving force behind her career from the outset—an idea that has been popularised by the mainstream press, who have tended to stress her talent and ambition, casting her parents in a loving and supportive role—the truth is more complicated.

In so doing, Swift signaled that she knows her celebrity, and in particular, the attendant devotion of her fans, is a form of ‘power’ (Marshall Citation2014). And it is precisely the possibilities and the limitations of this form of power, and its contradictions within an industry that both fosters and attempts to control it, that was at stake in Swift’s manoeuvre.

she is one of them—someone who has grown up with them, and someone whose most personal reflections in song seem to reflect their own lives.