Tropes Love A Showgirl

Kanye West made Taylor Swift famous.

I liken Taylor Swift to a mega church.  There is a book (lyrics) at the heart of the fervent adoration, but somewhere between merchandise and sing-alongs, the message gets lost.  I do not aim to denigrate her talent.  However, to separate the zealots at her feet from the power of her white woman victimhood mythology is to remove the essential piece of the narrative that has made Taylor Swift more holy than harassed.  It isn’t that any particular Swift album is overrated; it’s that her discography exists within a cultural hegemony that often overlooks how the victim narrative bolstered her from country to pop.

In a culture more attuned to pop than people, it is easier to invest in cultural currency. At the moment when Taylor Swift and Kanye West intersected on September 13, 2009, she was money.  She had released two albums and was a rising, dominant country star.  The video she was nominated for at the infamous VMAs featured her in all the best 2000’s girl-gets-the-guy tropes.  The nerdy girl was on the bleachers, wearing glasses; the girl with the guy was a cheerleader with perfect vision.  It was safe and palatable, and Taylor played both versions.  She was a vixen and a victim.

When an intoxicated West grabbed the mic from this thin, conventionally pretty white girl at the moment of her crowning, much of the world saw only malicious intent, attack, and a Carrie-esque overthrow that could only have been orchestrated by the popular girls. His words, that Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time, challenged the injustice of a significant piece of African American art being overlooked in lieu of a white woman’s safer, overplayed narrative. He may have started by announcing his intent to let Taylor finish, but he didn’t need to return the mic.  Her fate was sealed. Henceforth, her image became iconography, and to ignore this fact is to commit to the most American value of all: ego, art, and commerce exist within a world that assigns inherent worth and virtue to categories like race, sexuality, and gender.  Taylor Swift has ultimately benefited from this. One need not excuse West to understand that the storyline vilified him and victimized her, including aspects of both race and gender.

No human being asks that one of their hardest moments be reviewed, critiqued, and digested by those who are on the outside looking in.  Where modern-day celebrity becomes a fascination is that these cross-sections cannot be looked at in isolation. Taylor Swift’s hard work (and that of her parents) brought her to the stage.  Kanye West gave her the crown of a martyr.  

He made that bitch famous.

Or, rather, a cultural symbol of an innocent, wronged, white woman.  Fame loves a trope, and tropes love a showgirl.