On HU
Featured Archive Post: Qiana Whitted on blues comics.
Robert Stanley Martin with on sale dates of comics from mid 1947.
Chris Gavaler on discovering desire via Frazetta.
< href="https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2015/09/purity-culture-with-fangs/">Me on the film Teeth, and purity culture with fangs.
Me on spaghetti westerns, men, women, and guns.
Me on Andrew Breitbart and his eulogists.
Utilitarians Everywhere
At Broadly I wrote about how criminalizing midwives hurts women and babies.
At Quartz I wrote about Amber Batts and how criminalization hurts sex workers.
At Playboy I wrote about how there is no evidence of a Ferguson Effect.
At Splice Today I wrote about
—how a Breitbart writer accidentally palled around with a terror suspect.
—how campaign finance reform isn’t a very exciting platform for Bernie Sanders.
At Ravishly I reviewed the Perfect Guy, which is pretty good if you think all men are evil and should die.
At the Reader I wrote a little review of the great Japanese goofball rockers Mugen Hoso.
Other Links
Jay Gwaltney on text sex games.
Fascinating interview with Timothy Snyder about the Holocaust and state institutions.
Sarah Nyberg on being a troll, and changing.
Molly Smith on decriminalizing sex work in Scotland.
Aaron Bady on Taylor Swift and colonial fantasy.
I thought the Brady piece on Swift was reaching – the racism is on the old movie tributed in the video, isn’t it?
And I had a look at the article linked therein about how Shake it Off was racist — and wow. The argument has merit taken on its own terms, but when you actually perceive the meta-joke of whitest-of-white-girls Swift in a fish-out-of-water context like a bling-bling routine – I think assertions of racism fall apart…
I think Bady’s right. Yes, the old films are racist…but when you use the old films as a way to mark classiness and romantic awesomeness, without engaging with the racism, then you’re basically saying this old racist piece of art, in all its racism, is awesome. If racism is classy—well, that’s a racist thing to say, it seems to me.
Shake It Off doesn’t have a meta joke. The joke is that Swift is white and cute and just too adorable to be sexual and twerk like black women. It’s winkingly assuring you that Swift isn’t black. Distancing yourself from blackness as a way to show your innocence and virtue is racist.
I think your point about the Bady peace is worthwhile. I gather the sins of the original movie were more of omission -Africa w/o Africans- than anything else, and one can hardly defend more omission in ignoring that shortcoming. If reaching, not making all the joints crackle doing it, I grant.
For the rest, well, we perceive differently about the intent. If you don’t get the joke, the rest does logically follow.
I hardly think Taylor Swift hates/holds in contempt Britany Spears because she also wore a gold space outfit earlier in the video. I don’t think she thinks ballet sucks, either. The visuals of the video are heavily parody-laden towards several common pop themes, and a lot of the joke’s on the star.
-IF you ask me. I’m guessing, you’re guessing, and both authors are guessing about intent/message, which easily says as much or more about each of us as about Swift/her director/ect.
– Racism has often been classy. To say otherwise is just denial. The question is whether the racist bathwater is sufficiently bad that it should be thrown out together with the classy baby – because, as always, you’re never actually going to be able to separate the baby and the bathwater.
Though I don’t think any of this applies to the “Wildest Dreams” video anyway. Insisting that a video about ’50s Hollywood stars enjoying an African landscape needs to depict what was happening to black Africans at the time makes as much sense as insisting that the next Kanye West video depict the sweatshop workers who made the clothes he’s showing off (which, yes, he sort of did, once, in the “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” video, 10 years ago, though even there he subtly lets himself off the hook by making the bourgeoises who carelessly buy the blood diamonds white) – which is to say none at all. What’s actually happening here, of course, is that, in the same spirit as the Habsburg monarchs attending separate coronations in Bohemia and Hungary, one of the sops the American elite throws to its black contingent is the implicit promise that, when we depict Africa, you will be flattered, and Swift and the other makers of the video neglected to uphold the promise.
– So then what does distancing yourself from classic ballet mean?
Reading of intent are always embedded in readings of content. Saying “you’re reading in intent” just means that I’m reading in a different intent than you.
I wrote about the Swift video a bit back. I think that Shake It Off is all about performing incompetence, which reifies a particular kind of white female innocence and carefreeness. This is throughout the video, but it’s particularly painful and pointed with twerking, for obvious reasons.
http://www.ravishly.com/2014/12/09/taylor-swift-beyonce-and-dreary-pedestal-white-perfection
I don’t think Aaron is saying that the hardships of Africans needs to be depicted. He’s saying that the video actuates a nostalgic vision which is built on racism. That is, the sexy, cool, classical thing that Swift loves in the video is the vision of a luxurious white supremacy. It’s like Gone With the Wind and the neo-confederate myth of the lost cause. Why was the past so elegant and appealing? Well, because there were these brutalized people who had to work to make everything elegant off to the side.
I think the stuff about american elites throwing sops to black people seems pretty confused. The idea that there’s some sort of PC consensus that aesthetics is going to care about black people—I think that’s wishful thinking. Swift’s general indifference to African history or people isn’t some sort of brave counter to elitist complacence. Kind of can’t believe I even have to say that…
-That Swift feels comfortable dressing up in Audrey Hepburn black and dancing the style she can dance a little in, not so much in the other looks?
I was responding to Graham’s last line, of course.
Noah, I think I already said what you say in the first paragraph – the rest, I tend to agree with your point.
So it’s not that the brutalized people need to be depicted, it’s just that the brutalized people need to be depicted.
Oh come on.
(Though of course “pretend to” should be inserted before “care about.”)
I didn’t say that at all. I said it was negligence.
Swift and her co-creators don’t want to challenge the establishment (not on race, anyway). They just didn’t want to bother making the ritual gesture this time and thought they could get away with skipping it – and maybe thought wrong (or maybe not).
re “performing incompetence,” I would rather say that’s a class signifier: Physically awkward = nerd = professional class.
I don’t think there’s a ritual gesture. There isn’t a pc consensus. There’s no risk in skipping it especially; Swift is doing just fine, and is likely to continue to do just fine. The fact that some folks point out that she’s being kind of racist; this is not going to hurt her career. Being sort of racist hardly ever hurts anybody’s career.
If being racist hurt your career as a musician, white pop stars wouldn’t have careers, for the most part.
White women are very frequently stand ins for upper class.
“No risk in skipping it ESPECIALLY” – so, it doesn’t exist, but it’s sort of possible that it maybe does.
re consequences, as I said, Swift & co maybe (probably) bet correctly that they’d get away with it (though I think given the choice they’d prefer not to have gotten the criticism they’ve gotten).
I think Swift has determined that the risks of being associated with blackness are greater than the risks of erasing blackness. She seems pretty savvy; I suspect her sense of things is correct.
What does “associated with blackness” mean here? Remaking “La isla bonita” with black people instead of non-black Latinos? Because there’s no risk in that at all.
I would say Swift determined she’s interested in Elizabeth Taylor and not interested in what Aaron Brady wants to see.
Swift seems pretty obsessed with blackness, through erasure, flirtation, etc. That’s the case for most white musicians, but definitely her too.
Swift’s persona is built on respectability of a certain kind. She performs being a white woman, which means she’s innocent, not sexual, spunky, pretty, in command and powerful, but not too dangerous. She’s also now interested in being a pop performer, and in the current milieu, that means she has to embrace blackness (against country.) But she doesn’t want to be *too* black.
so you get these videos which are about being black but not too black. “Hi, I’m Taylor Swift, and I appreciate twerking, but I wouldn’t twerk myself, no no no!” or, “Hello, I am Taylor Swift, and I love Africa because it is exotic and cool like me, but let me assure you, fans, that this does not make me black. Look, no black people anywhere!”
I think as Bady says the video shows nostalgia for a time when negotiating these issues wasn’t so difficult for famous white women like Elizabeth Taylor.
You’re a Taylor Swift fan, right? You can like her and still admit that her handling of race is crap, you know.
No, really, I can hate an artist’s politics and still like the artist? Gee, if only I’d had this novel revelation beforehand – then maybe I could already have written something clever in this thread like “Racism has often been classy.” (I also just critiqued Kanye West for, at least, having his cake and eating it too – I might never have talked about him here, but I’m on record elsewhere on the internet acknowledging him as the most important musician working today, as he of course is.) This isn’t about Taylor Swift (whom I like, yes, though I can take or leave “Wildest Dreams” and fucking hate “Shake It Off”), it’s about the paradigm behind the critique.
That said, some rejoinders to the above:
1. Sexual isn’t dangerous any more (more precisely, the kind of sexual that Swift still sort of makes a point of eschewing – the Lady Gaga and/or Katy Perry kind – isn’t dangerous any more).
2. You don’t have to assure people that you aren’t black after showing them savannahs and lions, because savannahs and lion don’t make people think about black Americans.
3. I would say the video shows nostalgia for a more sexist time.
Okay, Graham. I’m not an expert on the abolition, labor, civil rights, or anti-war movements, but I generally doubt that the path to positive change is to screech abuse at crazy people. Let’s leave it at that.
Fuck, I posted this to the wrong article.
Well, since we’re here now, “screech abuse at crazy people” seems to me a pretty good description of William Lloyd Garrison, Harry Bridges, Malcolm X, and Abbie Hoffman’s styles.
Despite his crackpot white-man-is-the-devil theology pre-Mecca, Malcolm X always had an incredibly cold and clinical rhetorical style. He never addressed right-wingers.
What’s dangerous or sexual varies, I guess. But Miley Cyrus managed to genuinely freak people out by associating herself with black sexuality. Swift could do that too if she wanted.
I think black Africans are generally present for many people when you talk about Africa, if only in their erasure.
Okay, so he coldly and clinically delivered abuse to crazy people. No objection if you favor that, as long as you’re still able to make people pay as much attention as he was.
Re sexual being dangerous. Sexuality isn’t going to overthrow the capitalist structure, for the most part. But blatant sexuality still makes people appear dangerous, or is read as dangerous, or controversial. That’s the case for Nicki Minaj, for Beyoncé, for Miley, for Rihanna. Swift is committed to not doing that, and part of the way she avoids doing it is by distancing herself from blackness (since black women’s sexuality is seen as innately dangerous.)
Miley Cyrus genuinely freaked people out by flirting with pedophilia (this as opposed to Britney Spears, who flirted with pederasty).
I’d say it’s the whole package. Pedophelia, and the spectacle of a child star twerking with black women and presenting herself as LGBT.
– Nicki Minaj, Beyoncé, and Rihanna don’t appear dangerous. Saying they do at this point is like the late 19th century British or American liberal who thinks he’s still a radical because he believes that all property-owning men should be able to vote.
– Gay sex and even interracial sex (not much practiced, but accepted in principle) aren’t dangerous on Wall Street or K Street any more either. In the provinces, yes, but that isn’t where most of the power is.
This is going round in circles. What do you mean by “dangerous”? Like, is it going to pull down the capitalist system? No. But “danger” is part of how artists brand themselves. Rihanna’s BBHMM genuinely upset a lot of people, and was part of her marking herself as dangerous. Swift, on the other hand, avoids danger, or presenting herself as dangerous. Part of the way she does that is by insisting, loudly, over and over, that she isn’t black.
Nothing in this conversation has been about anyone being actually “dangerous”, whatever that would mean. It’s how performers present themselves, whether as mainstream friendly, or as titillating, or as edgy. You can use “edgy” if it makes you feel better. Miley was initially presented as safe and wholesome. Then she turned around and presented herself as queer, black, and adult. That caused a tremendous furor, in part because there are lots of people who do actually see those things as dangerous (esp for children) in part because some people enjoy the contrast, or get cred by presenting themselves as shocked, or what have you.
But most of the great and good today don’t think gayness or interracial relationships are dangerous. They used to, but now they don’t. They do still think sexualizing children is dangerous – so do you, so do I; that taboo’s probably not going anywhere – so Miley genuinely upset them for a minute.
If you want the image of being dangerous, without actually doing anything dangerous – which usually means you’re doing things that were considered dangerous in the recent past but aren’t any more – then that doesn’t mean you want to be dangerous; it probably means you’re aligning yourself with a recently ascended group (that is, the people whose ideas [i]were[/i] considered dangerous in the recent past but aren’t any more). The point is, Nicki Minaj, Beyoncé, and Rihanna are perfectly mainstream friendly – it’s just the wing of the mainstream that was radical not too long ago and wants to pretend it still is.
Again, I’m not claiming anyone is or isn’t dangerous. People position themselves as edgy or less so. Swift deliberately positions herself as not edgy by not being overtly sexual, and by distancing herself from blackness.
There are plenty of people who are still offended by twerking, for example. The mainstream isn’t one thing. But if your point here is to assure us that Rihanna doesn’t offend you, then cool. Message received.
Forgot to address BBHMM – that upset people because women hurting women is now regarded as a manifestation of internalized misogyny, and scolding manifestations of internalized misogyny on the internet is a big part of what passes for feminism today. I would say that was actually the same kind of situation as “Wildest Dreams” – the video pressed a few more of contemporary liberalism’s buttons than the creators probably expected.
For all you know, Rihanna does offend me (she doesn’t, but I didn’t say anything to that effect until now). I think it’s pretty obvious that I don’t consider myself a representative member of the great and good.
I’m sure there are some social conservatives despised by their own party who still find tweaking offensive. Other than that, the only controversy I’m aware of is among liberals over the question of whether white people are allowed to do it.
“tweaking” – meant twerking, obviously. Now tweaking really is still socially unacceptable.
No, see, this is the frustrating bit; I don’t seem to be able to communicate this to you.
Rihanna offended people exactly as much as she wanted to offend people. Her brand is offending people. Everyone who was freaked out for any reason by that Rihanna video? She is good with that. That includes feminists who were disturbed by the internalized misogyny, and people on the right who were angry at images of black people torturing white people. Rihanna’s brand is dangerous; she wants to piss people off.
Showing violence against women (anybody showing violence against women) is a standard way to demonstrate that you’re edgy. Has been for decades. Beating women up shows you’re cool; that’s why Rihanna does it (and why eminem does it, and why Johnny Cash did it, and so forth.)
Taylor Swift does not want to offend anyone. She was in fact probably going for as innocuous as possible. She keeps getting tripped up by charges of racism becuase to be as innocuous as possible she denigrates black people, or pretends they don’t exist.
“For all you know, Rihanna does offend me (she doesn’t, but I didn’t say anything to that effect until now).”
Yes you did.
Sorry; the impulse to tweak you the way you tweak others is hard for me to resist; I’ll try to stop though. I’d even delete it but I think it’s in your inbox…anyway. Yeah, I’ll stop. My apologies; I was just being a jerk.
I think Rihanna wanted the violence to be “shocking” (scare quotes becomes it’s not actually anything everybody hasn’t seen before). I don’t think she wanted to be accused of being anti-feminist, though I doubt she cared very much either way.
Trying to be Elizabeth Taylor isn’t “as innocuous a possible,” it’s mildly reactionary – sexually, not racially.
I don’t think you have anything to apologize for at all, but I have no idea what you’re referring to with “Yes you did.”
If you don’t think Rihanna is eager to piss off white feminists (and for that matter bell hooks) I don’t think you’ve been paying attention.
You know what I mean. She wants to piss off the sad old guard who think sexiness and violence are bad while at the same time delighting the newer guard who think they’re empowering and still rebellious. She didn’t particularly want people to think she unconsciously hates other women.
To be clear, I like Rihanna.
You probably like Rihanna and Taylor Swift more than I do; I find them both intermittently entertaining/interesting, but they often bore me…and I don’t find their videos especially interesting or thoughtful for the most part (for reasons I’ve discussed here, I guess.) Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé are much more musically/lyrically/visually engaging, imo.
I mean, if the choice is rihanna or taylor swift vs. high on fire or courtney barnett, i’d probably go with rihanna or taylor swift—these things are all relative of course…
See, this thread right here is full of the thing I like least about HU, and I’m not talking about Graham’s manners; it’s an argument, not a conversation. Noah, sometimes you just will not come off whatever political high horse you’re on and listen to the other guy – I think you’re better than that, or at least, should be.
Reading a couple of guys who make it clear they think people who disagree with them are wrong go round and round is neither educational nor entertaining.
I’m sorry I said anything to begin with; nobody listened. (I do mean to be scolding, but not angry – no worries.)
Maybe you’re talking about yourself, but I think Noah listened to me just fine. Speaking for myself, I naturally think everybody who isn’t me is wrong, but that doesn’t preclude reading them being an educational experience.
Okay, here’s something, if not educational, then maybe at least hopefully of interest: You want a connection between Taylor Swift and black American music that has more to do with what actually made her famous than the kinds of things usually discussed in articles containing words like “erasure,” then note the way the melody misplaces the stress on the word “again” in the chorus of “Wildest Dreams” with the result that it becomes a quasi-rhyme for “just in.”
Say you’ll see me a-gain
Even if it’s just in your…
This kind of thing is of course very common in rap, somewhat less so in sung music, but Swift does it all the time. Maybe she gets it directly from rap (she was playing an acoustic version of “Lose Yourself” back when she was 16 and only country-famous). Or maybe not; you can find highly approximate rhymes and mis-stressed syllables that seem to have structural significance – as opposed to simply being a result of carelessness – all over current pop, country, and r&b, of a variety that the Beatles or whoever would have considered ridiculous back in the day. But even then, in making a somewhat exceptionally deliberate use of that new freedom, Swift ends up bringing mainstream sung popular music* closer to rap, where a very deliberate use of the same has been the norm as of the ’90s.
* As opposed to more underground forms, which are of course often outright mannered, but that isn’t the same as taking what used to sound weird and making it sound normal.
Oh, if want to get into cultural appropriation, just read the lyrics of Shake it Off. I can’t think of the name for it, but it’s no different that those “Hatin’ all you want while I pile paper to the ceiling and live large”-type raps. Surprised that hasn’t been mentioned.
Okay, but “cultural appropriation” makes it sound like it’s a bad thing (which, granted, “Shake It Off” is, not because it appropriates but because it sucks).
I mean, the kind of rap you’re taking about doesn’t necessarily suck at all – you more or less paraphrased Kanye West’s “Good Life,” and that’s a great record.
Graham, that just seems to be saying that Taylor Swift is a singer in 2015. Beyonce, Rihanna, and even lots of country musicians do that sort of thing all the time.
As I said, it seems to me she does it somewhat more ambitiously than is the norm – even for singers (or more precisely for people writing lyrics to be sung) who are also rappers. But if you think it’s less common in country (“even country”) – I don’t think it is – that would be significant too, because she didn’t just start writing like that.
It would take some convincing to get me to believe that she’s incorporating rapping more ambitiously than someone like Beyoncé, whose been doing it for more than a decade and a half at this point. (And then of course there are gospel singers, who were an important source for rap to begin with…)
Country’s just been slow, like it usually is to adopt African-American musical innovations. It’s usually a decade behind or so.
Like I said, I’m not even sure how much of her prosody – a problematic term because it implies we’re talking about the words on their own rather than as they’re shaped by the music, but let’s just go with it – comes from listening to rap and how much comes from (at least slightly) extending what was already there in country and pop when she came in.
I don’t think pre-hip hop gospel has much to do with what I’m talking about, and I don’t think Beyoncé has ever been ambitious about how she uses words, in any respect – though Nicki Minaj certainly is.
I disagree about Beyoncé. DC played a lot with rap rhythms in their singing, and she still does, I think.
Otis Redding had some crazy rhymes in his time…
Everything I can think of by Otis (and anybody else from that time) is still closer to “true” rhyming, but I’d be very interested to know what examples you’d thinking of (with DC as well).
Argh, I have a particular Redding rhyme in mind but can’t quite remember it…I’ll try to track it down…
Country itself as a genre began largely as the blues set to another melodic style. Pick a Hank Williams song at random and listen to the lyrics – he wasn’t 100% blues-sung-twangy, but way north of half.
I’m not sure what that means other than po’ folk like the blues, but the Country genre Swift started out in has deep, deep roots in Black culture…
Country as a genre began as the blues, period, though with some other influences. Jimmie Rodgers is basically just the blues; if he had been black, his music would have been released in the race records series rather than hillbilly and no one would have blinked.
Hank Williams was as influenced by pop singers as by the blues, I’d say—though the difference between blues and pop was often more notional than actual anyway. (Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith were arguably both.)
Yeah, but the blues were strongly influenced by white folk music. It’s all one big artistic muddle, really.
…And if you listen carefully, Willie Nelson is a folk singer from Texas. The main difference between him and the Guthries is marketing. Welcome to the American melting pot…
No, that’s not right about Willie Nelson. His main influences are Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and jazz. He’s notorious for idiosyncratic phrasing and moving off and around the beat. He’s a much, much, more controlled and (imo) subtle singer than Woody Guthrie or Arlo. (or at least he used to be; his voice is kind of shot now.)
Hah; just listening to Bo Diddley and he rhymes “mouth” and “self”. I think that sort of slant rhyme (if that even qualifies as a slant rhyme!) is pretty common in R&B going back quite a way.
Siiigh. You people are too old to be lectured on manners, but fronting some good points with an insult or a flat contradiction is sans class and undermines any persuasive purpose you may have beyond trying to prove your brain-penis is bigger – and just spoils the whole thing.
BU, I”m not exactly sure what your problem is, but calling for civility by babbling about “brain-penises” or whatever isn’t especially helpful. The conversation here has been pretty civil; I thought I stepped over the line at one point and apologized. Other than that…the internet is going to be a cold, painful place for you if you think this conversation is especially harsh.
The affinity between Willie Nelson and Bing Crosby is no surprise when you remember that when Willie was starting out, Nashville sounded like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na5Y9FxR0lg
Never let it be said that commercialism never did anything for you.
I guess Willie is more “subtle” than Woody Guthrie, in that maundering crooner way that I can’t stand – but Woody is funnier.
@Noah
re Bob Diddley, what song?
@BU
“Siiigh. You people are too old to be lectured on manners” …buuut you’re going to go ahead and do it anyway. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX6FsTIq6ls&t=2m48s
Good lord; you prefer Woody Guthrie to Willie Nelson? That’s just wrong.
Guthrie’s singing is okay I guess; I find his humor kind of cramped is the truth, and he’s not my favorite old timey singer by a long shot; much prefer Sara Carter (for one.)
Not sure which song! Just listened to a whole album and wasn’t where I could see the song listing…and of course they’re all called “Bo Diddley” pretty much; I’ll try to not it down when it comes around again…
I’ll concede that Nelson is objectively the greater artist – though I’d say it’s a relatively low stakes contest – but personally oh God yes I prefer Guthrie. His jokes are nothing special as words, but the way he sings/talks them can be great. (“rockiiiiin and a’rollin”; “said it was eng-ai-ne trouble” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOpsGkC5-tE)
Actually, “and I was gonna coast as far as I could. / Commenced coastin’ / Pickin’ up speed / It was a hairpin turn / I didn’t make it.” is pretty great even in the page.
The mouth/self rhyme is in Bo Diddley Is Loose, which is an amazing song for lots of reasons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EVtMKVAGUI
Thank you!
Sorry for ruining the “recent comments” with this, but I’m going to go crazy if I don’t attach a recantation to my earlier comment. No WAY is Willie Nelson a greater artist – singer or songwriter – than Woody Guthrie.
I need to learn to stop meeting people half way. As if anybody else’s judgment could ever be better than my first instinct.
Nothing ruined! You’re still wrong though.
Hey Noah – humor me, and watch at least the first, second and seventh video:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x25s1qr_taylor-swift-shake-it-off-outtakes-video-1-the-cheerleaders-behind-the-scenes-video_music
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x25s1qt_taylor-swift-shake-it-off-outtakes-video-2-the-ballerinas_music
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x25s1qu_taylor-swift-shake-it-off-outtakes-video-3-the-modern-dancers-behind-the-scenes-video_music
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x264cap_taylor-swift-shake-it-off-outtakes-video-4-the-animators-behind-the-scenes-video_music
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x32b7ky_shake-it-off-outtakes-video-5-the-twerkers-and-finger-tutting-behind-the-scenes-video_music
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x270cc1_taylor-swift-shake-it-off-outtakes-video-6-the-ribbon-dancers-behind-the-scenes-video_music
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x32b8wk_taylor-swift-shake-it-off-outtakes-video-7-the-band-the-fans-and-the-extras_music
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x32b8wz_taylor-swift-shake-it-off-outtakes-video-8-the-director_music
I found Ms. Swift’s remarks about a not-fitting-in theme to each segment of Shake It Off interesting, Re: this thread…