'Miss Americana' Empowers Girls

Let me start off by saying this: I am not a Taylor Swift fan. Her music is catchy and her lyrics are clever, and I love all of her old songs, if only for the nostalgia factor, but I don’t keep up with celebrities or their personal lives in general. All this being said after seeing Miss Americana, I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried. Director Lana Wilson does a beautiful job of painting Taylor’s story as the universal, relatable, deeply human story of so many girls, all over the country. In an era where feminism is being questioned, it’s important for someone who so many young people look up to get involved in the things she cares about. Politics is not a spectator sport. Our representatives, governors, senators, mayors, presidents, and whatever else will not do what we want unless we tell them to.

Don’t get me wrong, Miss Americana is mostly about Taylor Swift’s personal life as well as her life as a celebrity. It shows her concerts, and her insecurities, and her family, but it also has an underlying thread of something that many girls go through. She opens up about needing others’ validation to feel happy, her past eating disorder, her sexual assault trial. Taylor Swift has been the nation’s “It Girl” for years. She decided to stay mum about politics, to be a “good girl” and not bother people with her opinions. Only 23.2% of Representatives in the House are female, and only 25% of the Senate. It’s only been a century since women were first allowed to vote, and the United States ranks 51st worldwide in women’s rights. Politics need more girls. Swift broke her silence on the topic in 2018, when she endorsed Democratic candidates in Tennessee for the House and Senate, saying she couldn’t hold her silence any longer when she saw Republican candidate Marsha Blackburn running a platform that was anti-feminist and anti-LGBT. She later released a music video (“You Need to Calm Down”) supporting the LGBT community.

This decision was purportedly spurred from the sexual assault trial that Swift endured in 2017. She was groped when she was younger by David Mueller, a DJ, who she reported and was later fired. However, he came back and sued Swift for millions of dollars. She counter-sued for one dollar. She won the case, but in the movie, she talks about how she couldn’t stop thinking about how sometimes women don’t. She had a photo of Mueller groping her and seven witnesses, but “what happens when it’s just your word against his?” She decided that she had a duty to speak out as a public figure because she had the ability to make real change. 

All of us have the ability to make a change— we may not be worldwide superstars, but we can vote, we can petition, we can educate ourselves (and others!). Girls really can change the world. We shouldn’t just stand by and watch things happen. As Mary Oliver said, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”