So let me be totally frank, my daughter grew up with Taylor Swift. Fearless (2008) and Speak Now (2010) were on constant rotation in my house and every girl from age 8 – 12 that was in my life new the words to all of her songs. Those albums will forever bring memories of singing at the top of my lungs with my daughter and her friends. As my daughter got older, her musical tastes evolved and while we still listened to Taylor’s music, we weren’t super fans but we weren’t anti-Taylor either. Red (2012) and 1989 (2014) came out and we still listened to her songs on the radio and even downloaded a few singles, my awareness of Swift faded.
I remember watching the VMAs in 2009 when Kanye West interrupted her acceptance speech and agreed with most people that West’s actions were unwarranted and quite unfair to Swift but until watching Miss Americana, I didn’t realize the impact of that experience. Until watching Miss Americana, I admit I had somewhat dehumanized Taylor Swift – I forgot that when this happened to her in 2009 she was a 17 year old girl and that when it came to Kanye at that time – Swift considered herself a fan of his.
I don’t want to spoil Swift’s very authentic perspective of this that is part of Miss Americana but I will say, hearing how this single event impacted a 17 year old girl (not a famous artist), broke my heart. All of the sudden, I put my daughter in her shoes and was gutted. I also became a renewed fan of Taylor Swift and her ability to overcome it.
What I learned from this documentary, more than anything, is the impact of a young girl building an entire persona, life, and career that is solely focused on being liked; singularly focused on the approval of others —and this is why I think all teens, especially girls, should watch this.
As parents, we may work as diligently as we can to keep our kids from being hurt. We work to protect them from harm but we aren’t with them 24/7 and the world they live in today is consumed by social media. Young people today are fully immersed in selfie culture and FOMO (fear of mission out). Taylor tells a powerful story of how allowing “Likes” to quantify your worth can lead to harmful emotional scars.
The other emerging phenomenon Swift addresses in Miss Americana is Cancel Culture. This is a product of social media. It’s the idea of “cancelling” a celebrity or influencer’s career by generating massive social media content that I can only compare to a virtual mob and is basically social shaming at an obscene level. This is another vitally important topic to understand and talk about with your teen. First of all because you want to ensure they understand the mental and emotional impact it can have on the person being attacked and because you want to make sure your son or daughter is not so entrenched in social media to be the victim of a blast like this. Swift explained in an interview with Vogue,
“I don’t think there are that many people who can actually understand what it’s like to have millions of people hate you very loudly. When you say someone is canceled, it’s not a TV show. It’s a human being. You’re sending mass amounts of messaging to this person to either shut up, disappear, or it could also be perceived as, Kill yourself.”
What Swift has experienced will allow parents to open a line of discussion with their kids that will hopefully teach them how to navigate these rough waters as they grow up.
“Do you really care if the internet doesn’t like you today?”
Another topic that I believe is important that comes out of the documentary is for parents to explore how much is “too much” which Swift speaks candidly about the arc of her career and when it shifted from being about her music and more about feeding a machine. When is the pursuit of “more” enough? What’s more important in life? Is it more money in the bank or happiness?
Those who love Taylor will 100% love this documentary, those that don’t love her so much should at least gain a deeper level of respect for the huge amount of work she puts into everything. I’m sure there will still be people that want to hate Swift just because they love to hate certain celebrities, there will be naysayers out there that say the entire documentary was framed and scripted but for me, I choose to assume people are inherently good rather than inherently bad.
NOTE: This is not a paid advertisement or partnership with Netflix or any other product, service, or site mentioned.