Ben Sexsmith in Spectator on Taylor Swift’s pummeling into a deluxe, fashion-forward conformity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While complaining that country singers are expected to “shut up and sing” because Dixie Chicks…:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Swift is shown to have been under at least\u00a0some\u00a0<\/em>pressure to avoid being \u2018political\u2019, including from her own father, but the media she appears to be so vulnerable towards was criticizing and deriding her for not being political\u00a0enough.\u00a0<\/em>Her reputation, which is so important to her, was suffering in the late 2010s because her silence on the Trump administration was held to represent \u2018white privilege\u2019 if not outright racism.
There was article after article about her \u2018blinding white privilege<\/a>\u2019 and her \u2018indifference to the struggles of people of color<\/a>\u2019. For\u00a0Quartz<\/em>, Swift\u00a0represented<\/a>\u00a0\u2018a dangerous form of white women\u2019. For\u00a0The Root\u00a0<\/em>she\u00a0was<\/a>\u00a0\u2018one of the\u00a0most<\/em>\u00a0dangerous types of White woman\u2019 (my emphasis). A\u00a0Daily Beast\u00a0<\/em>writer said Swift\u00a0was<\/a>\u00a0\u2018the living embodiment of white privilege\u2019.\u00a0
This\u00a0<\/em>was the greatest pressure that Swift\u2019s reputation faced and it is hard not to suspect that her politicization did not have something to do with answering such criticism. There is no point in complaining about celebrities being progressive. You might as well complain about the winter being cold or the tides coming in. But it is preposterous to imply a celebrity\u2019s progressivism takes courage and iconoclasm. It is expected if not\u00a0demanded\u00a0<\/em>of them, and Swift and her friends clinking wine glasses as they toast \u2018the Resistance\u2019 is one of the most bourgeois images of our times.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n