Taylor Swift wants to own an entire year. Adam Scott’s would-be BFF, or someone in her management team who’s legally forbidden to listen to Katy Perry, filed documents with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office to trademark not only “1989” (in “stylized” form) but also “Blank Space,” “A Girl Named Girl,” and “Swiftmas” (no one cares about Swiftukkah).
In semi-related news, Swift has been called a “Nazi Barbie.”
Famed feminist academic Camille Paglia wrote an essay for the Hollywood Reporter about the danger of “girl squads,” like the one Swift brings on stage with her during every stop of the 1989 (can I still say that without getting sued?) tour. “In our wide-open modern era of independent careers,” Paglia wrote, “girl squads can help women advance if they avoid presenting a silly, regressive public image — as in the tittering, tongues-out mugging of Swift’s bear-hugging posse.” Someone’s taking Joey from Friends down a peg.
Swift herself should retire that obnoxious Nazi Barbie routine of wheeling out friends and celebrities as performance props, an exhibitionistic overkill that Lara Marie Schoenhals brilliantly parodied in her scathing viral video “Please Welcome to the Stage.” (Via)
Paglia thinks that girl squads “ought to be about mentoring, exchanging advice and experience, and launching exciting and innovative joint projects.” Nowhere in there does she mention hanging out with gorgeous models and fellow millionaires while wearing sunglasses. Those are Swift’s friends, and it’s not her fault she’s so beyond-famous that she can’t blend in with us normal people anywhere. But her “sisters are doing it for themselves” message gets muddled when her sisters look like Gigi Hadid and Karlie Kloss, as much “performance props” as Swift’s sparkly microphone.
At least she’s on #brand.
(Via the Hollywood Reporter)
