Taylor Swift has another interesting interview, this time with Esquire. I know a lot of you were yelling about Swifty’s interview yesterday, where she talked about how “sexist” it is that we’re like “haha, she writes blind-item songs about her ex-boyfriends.” I didn’t agree with her, but I also felt like… I don’t know, she’s trying to change. She’s maturing. Is she some amazing truth-telling feminist and we should just take her word that something is “sexist”? No, not really. But I appreciate the fact that she’s actually thinking about those kinds of things, like she’s asking herself “Is this sexism? Would they treat me differently if I was a man doing this?” I bring that up because she’s talking about sexism again, plus loads of other stuff. I edited out a bunch of same-old crap about how much she loves her girlfriends (she’s really going through a Girlfriends Phase and yes, I do think it’s just a phase). You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:
Why people pay attention to her dating habits: “I think with every celebrity story there has to be a “Yeah, but …” Take Beyoncé: She’s incredibly talented, gorgeous, perfect role model for girls, empowering women all over the world. Yeah, but … let’s try to pick at her marriage. I think that every celebrity has that. And predominantly women, unfortunately.”
Whether she’s a control freak: “No. The only thing I can’t control is the spin in the press. And so if I know I can’t control that, I have to let it go. In some ways, though, you can control it. I really didn’t like the whole serial-dater thing. I thought it was a really sexist angle on my life. And so I just stopped dating people, because it meant a lot to me to set the record straight—that I do not need some guy around in order to get inspiration, in order to make a great record, in order to live my life, in order to feel okay about myself. And I wanted to show my fans the same thing.”
She handwrites thank you notes to deejays: “I love writing thank-you notes. There’s something very nostalgic to me about the feel of a card and putting pen to paper. How many times in our lives are we required to put pen to paper anymore? There’s something romantic and sort of lost about it. I like things you can touch and things you can keep, because every bit of communication we have is ephemeral in nature. You can just delete an e-mail and it’s like it was never there.”
Takedown culture: “That’s what I don’t like about celebrity culture and the obsession with it, and the takedown culture that we seem to be in. You have celebrities who are pushed to the brink of a public meltdown, and so the public thinks that every person in the public eye has dirty secrets that they’re keeping, or isn’t what they seem, or is masking it and faking sincerity, faking authenticity, faking being surprised at award shows when you win a Grammy.”
Her security personnel: “I fought the idea of having security for a very long time, because I really value normalcy. I really do. I like to be able to take a drive by myself. Haven’t done that in six years. [Even in Tennessee] they have to be in a car behind me. Because just the sheer number of men we have in a file who have showed up at my house, showed up at my mom’s house, threatened to either kill me, kidnap me, or marry me. This is the strange and sad part of my life that I try not to think about. I try to be lighthearted about it, because I don’t ever want to be scared. I don’t want to be walking down the street scared. And when I have security, I don’t have to be scared.
Behind the Music: “When I was a little kid, my friends were watching Disney Channel, but I was watching Behind the Music. And I was drawing these conclusions, like the reason these people went off the rails is because they lost their level of self-awareness. They turned a blind eye to things they didn’t want to see, and all of a sudden all they were seeing were their delusions of grandeur. And I never wanted to make that mistake in my life, regardless of what my career ended up being. I take away these kind of life lessons from that show.
I think feminism is so new to Swifty that she thinks crying “sexism” is like waving a magical wand in front of the press to make everyone take her seriously. Talking about who she dates isn’t a “sexist” angle on her life when she’s parading her boyfriends around the paparazzi, organizing Us Weekly covers and cornering exes at the Vanity Fair Oscar party. And she’s still pissed off that people made fun of her near-constant OMG SURPRISE Face at awards shows. Dear Tay-Tay: you are a silly goose. Stop taking yourself so seriously!
Oh, and there’s an interesting answer when she’s asked about her background in country music – her current album is solid pop, as was the last album (although the last one still got some country radio play). Swifty talks about how she learned how to be a professional because she started in country music and hand to God, it sounds like she’s running for political office. Her answer is very Sarah Palin, like Palin’s riff on how the small towns are “real America” as opposed to the big cities.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.
