[ SECRET POST #6882 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6882 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.




__________________________________________________



02.



__________________________________________________



03.



__________________________________________________



04.



__________________________________________________



05.



__________________________________________________



06.























Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 36 secrets from Secret Submission Post #983.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

06. https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/7032b1bd1b03.png

Transcript by OP

[fscom]

Collapsed for length!

Re: Transcript by OP

[fscom]

I don't even like Taylor Swift but a lot of the outrage about her feels so performative. Like the way some people are actually enraged about her apparently "not understanding" the literary character of Ophelia and her story. Like, do these people also get their panties in a twist about the dozens upon dozens of songs invoking (the deeply misunderstood pop culture version of) Romeo and Juliet?

Like, I get it, it's partly because some of her stans pretend that all her lyrics are super profound but still, the amount of people I've seen going "I was an English major and OMG let me tell you how wrong she is about this character who has almost no lines" is kind of silly.

(But hey, at least these people finally got some use out of their English degree I guess lol.)

Re: Transcript by OP

[(Anonymous)]

People who overhype themselves as super clever and skillful tend to get criticized hard when their output turns out to kinda suck and not live up to their self hype, news at 11

Re: Transcript by OP

[(Anonymous)]

"Like, do these people also get their panties in a twist about the dozens upon dozens of songs invoking (the deeply misunderstood pop culture version of) Romeo and Juliet?"

YES. YES THEY DO. Haha, you clearly don't know anyone who's into English lit.

[(Anonymous)]

FTR, I completely agree with this secret 100%.

But, while there definitely are countless misused literary references across all forms of media... I can't help finding it absolutely hilarious that you brought up the one example that immediately had me going "yep, TSwift did that too".

[(Anonymous)]

I think some people are being a bit smug with their "I'm so smart, here to put down a pop star!"
But at the same time, I really get why people are being harsh on the allegory in "The Fate of Ophelia".

Taylor Swift for a while now has been trying to sell herself as cultured and a deep thinker, and it's this gift that allows her to be a pop star.
And while I have a lot of compassion for girls and women who feel like they have to fight tooth and nail to be taken seriously, it's also annoying when someone is trying present themselves and their work as deeper than what is really there.

Taylor's gift is in being able to tell stories that were obviously personal to her yet were also able to be relatable to a lot of listeners. She also is good at putting a song together that is accessible to large crowds.

I thought it was obvious her strengths don't lie in allegories given that one of the first times I saw criticism directed toward her were her sloppy allegories in "Love Story".

I personally really hate her using Ophelia and her fate to compare to her dating experiences.
Like, the point of Ophelia's fate was that patriarchy fails her and the only sense of choice she had was when and how she died.
Taylor using that to flip the story to be about her finding love is...complete Pick Me behavior.
"Instead of killing myself because the men in my life made me feel powerless and crazy, I found YOU. A man who saved me from a sad fate where I die alone because no man loved me enough. Thank you for picking me!"

IMO overall I'd rather see people break down why her music wasn't working for them than to not see it. I've seen both Taylor fans and non-fans critique the new album. It's been a mixed bag too TBH. I've seen people be really harsh on it, but also people be really into the songs.
Taylor Swift is a big star so her works can generally bring out a lot of discourse from many places.

[(Anonymous)]

An intelligent and nuanced explanation of the situation? In MY F!S? Get outta here! /s

I have no dog in this pony show but that helps me understand things very well, good job nonny.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm a casual Taylor Swift fan (don't own any of her stuff, but I listen to her on Spotify) and that song is CATCHY AS HELL.

I know her lyrics aren't necessarily perfect in a literary sense; Ophelia wouldn't give a shit about some guys team and vibes, but my god, that's a great pop confection.

[(Anonymous)]

That couldn't have been "the point" of Ophelia's fate, because the concept of the patriarchy and feminism didn't exist when the play was written. It could be an incidental point you can support with evidence, but it wasn't Shakespeare's intent to criticize the patriarchy in name or concept.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm a long-time fan of hers, and I honestly agree with what you're saying here.

For the sake of playing devil's advocate, though, I will say that there's actually something interesting to me about arguably the world's current most famous person comparing herself to a female character who was failed by the patriarchy and went mad. Because I think if I had to deal with existing in the eye of the cultural storm the way Taylor has for so long now, I would've probably gone mad. Like, "Please hospitalize me, I'm a danger to myself" unwell.

Yes, Taylor has a LOT of power, and a LOT of control in many ways that normal people will never experience. I'm not saying she isn't privileged. I'm subsisting on disability in an apartment that is one step up from a slum. I can't even afford a car, or a home that isn't most likely poisoning me with lead and asbestos. I am disempowered and feel helpless in a way Taylor Swift probably can't even imagine. But there is undoubtedly a kind of terrifying disempowerment that Taylor Swift feels, too; the disempowerment of being a female performer on a global stage, feeling dehumanized and objectified and misconstrued on a scale that I can't even fully imagine.

I mean, I feel like if Britney Spears wrote a song likening herself with Ophelia, that would be an incredibly potent statement about the miasma of misogyny-infused cruelty one swims in when one is female and famous. Taylor Swift is not Britney Spears, and has not had to suffer the ultimate denial of her personal autonomy that Britney did, but Taylor has existed for nearly two decades in the eye of the hurricane that tore Britney apart until the extremity and the abuse of it all had addled and diminished her enough to render her cageable. So I do actually feel like Taylor Swift comparing herself to Ophelia has the potential to be extremely valid in that way.

Buuuut. I don't really feel like all that much of this^ is present in the song The Fate Of Ophelia. The argument can be made that it's a more apt analogy than it seems at first glance, but the song itself is very much, as you say, a song about being saved from emotional hopelessness and desolation by romantic love. Any exploration of what it was that drove Ophelia/Taylor to madness/the brink of madness is only touched upon with a glancing generality.

[(Anonymous)]

A part of me thinks people have been really harsh on Taylor Swift because she declared herself as "your favorite English teacher" and it rubbed people the wrong way lmao

[iff_and_xor]

Did she really? I don’t know if that rubs me the wrong way as much as it seems sort of bizarre.

[(Anonymous)]

I hadn't heard that she said that, but what an odd thing to say.

[iff_and_xor]

I think some of it is just having become resigned to certain things and not others (yet). Or at least I see that happen in me.

There are certain things I see people annoyingly/disappointingly misinterpret all the time in a way I’ve gotten used to. But when a new one creeps up, it bothers me a little more just for being a new thing rather than an old frustration.

Romeo and Juliet have been used as allusions so often that there is a well-established pop culture misunderstood version, as OP mentioned. Ophelia hasn’t gone through that (yet) as far as I’ve seen.

[(Anonymous)]

As a newer fan: I'm tired, chief. Just let me have enjoy the catchy song about a woman afraid of drowning.

(Ophelia's one of my favorite Shakespeare characters, so I'm EXTRA tired.)

Relevant Todd in the Shadows video.

[(Anonymous)]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rAR07DCN4Y

Re: Relevant Todd in the Shadows video.

[(Anonymous)]

DA
The way Todd is just sitting there at the start as lights are flashing and horns blowing XD

[(Anonymous)]

Daddy should have spent a bit more on education instead of a record company.

[(Anonymous)]

If you're trying to lend credence to the notion that misogyny is a driving force behind a lot of the negativity levelled at her, then you're doing a great job, keep it up.

[(Anonymous)]

Idk man, Tswift has the depth of a puddle trying to masquerade as an ocean. She can make Ophelia a tap dancing stripper, it's about on par with her other work. Why get mad over something we expect from her. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[(Anonymous)]

This is true. I don't get the drama over it, honestly. This is pretty much on par with her previous work. It never was that deep.

[tabaqui]

Kinda funny how so many people in comments are doing just what OP pointed out in the secret.....

And now i have to go to work, meh. Yay overtime, blah picking up hours that other people just randomly skivved off for no good reason. I like my downtime, too!

[(Anonymous)]

Being an English major has fuckall to do with how well you understand literature anyway. Being an English major with shit reading comprehension was so ubiquitous in fandom at one point that it was memefied.

[(Anonymous)]

English majors are uniquely exhausting to interact with.