When my younger daughter texted me from New York saying she couldn’t talk because she was about to hop onto a train to go see Taylor Swift’s newly released “Life of a Showgirl,” my mind raced back a number of decades to the time when my closest, oldest friend and I were in her New York City apartment belting out the lyrics to Cindi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want To Have Fun.”
Then… I realized I could also get tickets to Taylor Swift’s new movie release. So, I wrangled my good-natured husband into joining me for what I was sure would be a fun extravaganza. Alas, ten minutes into the movie I found my husband dozing, and half-way in I found myself checking my watch. This was only an hour and a half, right? It had been a long forty-five minutes.
That having been said, I wasn’t expecting high art and I was there “just to have fun,” so I sat back and enjoyed the show. I most liked Opalite and thought it sent a solid message in a light-hearted way. There’s basic truth in what Taylor lyrically sings about — the heartbreak of loves lost and the celebration when love is found, and about making a rich tapestry of one’s life despite unexpected detours and obstacles encountered along the way.
It’s alright
You were dancing through the lightning strikes
Sleepless in the onyx night
But now the sky is opalite…
Oh oh oh oh oh man-made opals, and the power we have to craft our own life’s gems.
Leaving the theatre, I eagerly texted my daughter… what did you think of the movie?
A quick text back: “I hated it.”
When I asked why, she responded “Taylor sounded self-important and tone deaf, not lyrically interesting, and not deep at all.”
Wow…. I thought. What happened to “Girls Just Want To Have Fun?”
Here I was thinking that — considering the enormity of Taylor’s fame and following — there was something charming and self-effacing about her making a parody of herself, and placing herself as one of many showgirls since the 1920’s. I recognize the huge marketing machine behind her, but the message felt authentic enough to me, at least if just for fun.
However, when exploring more with my daughter about what she thought was tone-deaf, she said “she has so much power, and she doesn’t even talk ever about how the world is plagued with so many atrocities. She just does her thing.”
I heard the criticism, and it seems legitimate to me. Yet my daughter’s words were also a sad commentary on our times. Although all times are complicated, these times of ours are particularly fraught. And I think for my daughter and her generation, fun is tempered by the state of our country, our geo-politics, and our climate crisis. And seeing someone she has long respected who has so much power not use that voice to enable the disenfranchised simply seemed too frivolous. Fiddling while Rome burns.
And yet, Taylor is not an emperor or a world leader, nor does she pretend to be. She is an entertainer, and she has historically shown herself to have a big and compassionate heart and spoken up about important issues for women. Just not in this film. In this film, she’s a Showgirl.
Taylor’s music often explores extreme versions of herself, and her Showgirl version seems self-reflective and honest. It is her “fallen in love” self. Her unselfconscious “I just want to have fun” self. It’s a far cry from her younger selves when she was longing for love in “You Belong with Me,” or responding to criticism for dating too much in “Blank Space,” or expressing in “The Man” her frustration with the double standards in society and in the music industry.
It is great when Taylor uses her voice to speaks out about critical issues, but I don’t think she meant this movie to be for that purpose. I imagine and hope her future will include using her political power voice more often, but sometimes a showgirl is just that – a girl in a show. And that’s OK too.
Although none of us want to fiddle if Rome is burning, for Rome to be a place we want to live, we can’t stop fiddling.
