[ SECRET POST #6882 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6882 ⌋

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


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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

[(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.