Because the power of Taylor Swift can result in getting a show “bad review bombed” after she expresses extreme disapproval, it bears noting that Ginny & Georgia was one “battle” Swift didn’t really need to use her ammo against. It’s already a lukewarm-received show, billed as “perfect trash” or, somewhat ironically for a story with a biracial main character, it is accused of “never quite find[ing] its identity.” One thing it has found an identity in, however, is off-handed remarks and appraisals about celebrities (just another way in which it conjures comparisons to Gilmore Girls).
At one point in the show, there is a moment when we can almost hear the precursor to Swift’s critique as Georgia tells Ginny, “Try to be a bit more creative. This super angsty teen girl routine you got going on–frankly it’s boring.” Except, instead, “This super tired joke about how many men I’ve been with–frankly, it’s boring.” What Swift actually said, however, was far more brutal, and leads one to believe it struck more of a nerve with her than it ought to have (that is, if she’s so secure in her “partnership” with Joe Alwyn). Knowing that she’s “past all that,” why bring more attention to a banal (though not untrue) joke than there otherwise would have been had she not called it out?
The passive aggressive and aggressive aggressive tweet in question consisted of Swift shaming, “Hey Ginny & Georgia, 2010 called and it wants its lazy, deeply sexist joke back. How about we stop degrading hard working women by defining this horse shit as FuNnY. Also, @netflix after Miss Americana this outfit doesn’t look cute on you. Happy Women’s History Month I guess.” Incidentally, the mention in Ginny & Georgia of Michelle Obama’s aphorism about going high when someone else goes low is not something that has affected Taylor’s stance on how to react when she’s “attacked.” What’s more, shaming Netflix about “permitting” it when the streaming company has the freedom to air the content they want without worrying about how it might be interpreted by “Queen” Taylor isn’t exactly “normal” thinking. A corporation is going to do whatever it can to draw in an array of audiences. Ginny & Georgia is just another show that does that on the streaming platform, and shouldn’t be subjected to “the censors” because Taylor “gave” them a documentary.
As a certain “reckoning” comes with being “allowed” to lampoon celebrities at all (a trend that’s caught on post-Framing Britney Spears), it seems Swift and her ilk suddenly want to go back to the one part of Golden Age Hollywood everyone (except gossip columnists) loved–never being able to talk shit about the “stars.” But that has for so long been the unspoken tradeoff of what it means to risk “acquiring” fame. Not everyone can tell you that sunshine and rainbows shine out of your ass all the time–especially if they’re not among the sycophants paid to do so.
Swift has dated a lot of men. It’s not a lie. A serial monogamist, Swift has been in roughly thirteen “significant” relationships all before turning thirty. That’s a rare feat. It’s rarer than just being a “conventional” “slut.” And one tends to think that people would be remiss if they didn’t use it as a simile once in a blue moon. Ergo, Ginny (Antonia Gentry) saying to her mother, “What do you care? You go through men faster than Taylor Swift” when she asks her if things are over with her boyfriend, Hunter (Mason Temple). But no, Swift sees it as an example of that special place in hell reserved for women who don’t “help” other women.
Another problematic part of Swift’s outburst is to also call out how her documentary sheds some “arcane” truth about the singer herself and “feminism” in general. It’s nothing if not both narcissistic and apropos, for it is in Miss Americana that Swift discusses the extreme lows that come with moments when a career high is achieved. Because after that, the question is: where are you supposed to go next? “What if all your dreams come true and it’s still not enough?” Ginny asks after being welcomed into a friend group and getting a popular boyfriend. This is a sentiment Swift can surely identify with. Truthfully, there are many “isms” in the show Swift might recognize as they pertain to herself. Like when Ginny notes, “My mother never has trouble with men. She always knows what to say, how to be.” Swift, too, would seem to indicate having this trait.
“She’s unapologetic, fearless,” Ginny narrates as Georgia swaps out her daughter’s toothbrush batteries with the ones from her vibrator. Lately, that’s the vibe Swift is giving off, and she also happens to be re-recording Fearless (as Taylor’s Version, because everything in this world must be rendered as Taylor’s Version eventually, including TV shows scrubbed clean of any jokes about her).
Another moment when Ginny actually seems to be channeling Taylor’s inner monologue comes when she rails against her racist, misogynistic English teacher. After giving a presentation defending Lydia Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, she adds, “Women get a million different messages on how they’re supposed to be. It’s confusing.” That chauvinistic teacher can only think to shut her up by telling her she’s being “aggressive.” Taylor has been a victim of just such a phenomenon. Except, in the case of this tweet, she actually is being aggressive. Provoked more easily after years spent just “going along with” the mockery.
It would be one thing if this was still a comedic “bit” being overly saturated, as it was during the era when Swift appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. But it’s not. Most have “let” Taylor “rebrand.” One supposes that’s why this specific “lapse” is what caught Taylor’s eye so hard. She doesn’t ever want “the narrative” to be shifted back to that. But, returning to the Ellen era of this form of mockery, one interview from 2012 in particular has not held up so well. During it, Ellen, among other “gags,” reveals a flashback clip of when Swift was on the show earlier in the year with Zac Efron to sing an off-the-cuff song consisting of the lyrics, “She always asks me who I’m dating every time I’m on the show and I don’t even know why.”
Swift’s clear disapproval of the talk show host’s “methods” didn’t stop Ellen from trying to make her perform the degrading act of ringing a bell for which guy a song might be about when she flashes a series of photos of Swift with different dudes. On the verge of tears by the end, Swift admits, “It just makes me really question what I stand for as a human being.” This element, too, is likely part of why the Ginny & Georgia comment continued to sting enough for Swift to lash out. In addition, of course, to Swift angling toward the idea that she doesn’t want to “normalize” sexism any longer. Because, like Georgia says in the final episode (seemingly borrowing lyrics from a Swift song called “Death By A Thousand Cuts”), “It’s not one big thing that crushes the spirit, it’s death by a million paper cuts.” One of those small paper cuts of sexism Georgia makes mention of is how women are 75% more likely to die in a car accident because the crash tests are performed with bodies modeled after the male physique.
Georgia also notes that, “Fame means people are watchin,’” and that certainly seems to be the case if Swift has her “glazzies” on this show. If anything, she’s only helped to give Sarah Lampert’s creation even more of a viewings boost by being so caustic toward it. Evidently, as caustic as she felt the show was being toward her.
What’s more, Swift isn’t the only one who Ginny or another character “comes for.” An entire episode is centered on Britney Spears costumes for Halloween. “Look, she’s got like a medicated Britney vibe going on,” Norah (Chelsea Clark) and Abby (Katie Douglas) say while staring at a white trash woman in a trucker hat (who we later find out is Ginny’s aunt). Britney didn’t tweet about that. Not only because she’s heard it all before, but because the comment is also cushioned. “Oh…yes,” Norah replies sadly. Abby says, “What? Britney?” Norah nods, “I just want what’s best for her.” Maxine (Sara Waisglass) concurs, “We all do.”
Maybe if Swift had gotten some conciliatory “tag” to her insult like this, she would have…calmed down (to borrow one of her own song’s parlances). And she didn’t quite get the same effusive treatment as Ariana Grande with the line, “I love Ariana Grande, she’s so classy.” Is she? Is dating Pete Davidson at any point, getting spray tans and licking donuts…classy? Anyway, this is what Norah says at the Sophomore Sleepover as they all put their hair up in high ponytails for a picture, calling attention to Ginny’s “black girl hair” when a mom tries to slick it back.
But let’s not stray from Britney. “Britney! Let’s be Britney. All of her different looks,” Ginny exclaims after the preamble made with that aforementioned dialogue. Norah responds, “So retro. I love it!” When Ginny again calls the costume idea “retro” in front of her mother, Georgia balks, “You just called Britney Spears retro, so I have to go cryogenically freeze myself now.”
The reverence for Britney might also have made Swift feel an underlying resentment–does she not have enough looks for teen girls to choose from, too (a fact she made clear at the end of the video for “Look What You Made Me Do”)? Not like Britney, it would seem. Which is why Max is “Oops!…I Did It Again” with her red catsuit (also emerging later in an “I’m A Slave 4 U” getup), Abby is “Me Against the Music” with her fedora and tie, Norah is “Toxic” with her flight attendant ensemble and Ginny is “…Baby One More Time” with the schoolgirl uniform.
The 00s references keep coming when Marcus (Felix Mallard) says of Maxine, “I gotta look after Lindsay Lohan here.” So see, Taylor? The writers of the show simply have a fondness for a tabloid era when making fun of celebrities wasn’t such a political issue. But they stay in the modern era as well, also “giving shit” to Billie Eilish with the dialogue, “‘Aderall Brains’ is the worst song name in the history of song names. It sounds like Billie Eilish.” Samantha (Romi Shraiter), the so-called “black sheep” of the friend group, declares, “I like Billie Eilish.” The douchebag guy returns, “Of course you do. That makes complete sense to me.” Did Eilish complain about the “affront”? No.
More horrifying statements to Taylor’s ears likely included Ginny saying, “It’s like I’m dating John Mayer.” Hunter reminds, “You love John Mayer. It’s so cute, the fact that you constantly DM him.” Ginny insists, “He’s a national treasure!” We know Taylor (and Jessica Simpson) can’t agree.
The odd threads that tie into Taylor reach another peak when, funnily enough, there’s a major “no body, no crime” moment in episode nine of the show. In fact, this particular scene would have been perfect for that evermore track. Alas, any goodwill Ginny & Georgia could have drummed up with Taylor was obliterated in the final episode. “You and Hunter? I’m guessing that’s over,” Georgia says. Ginny retorts, “What do you care? You go through men faster than Taylor Swift!”
Taylor might say that’s so “2010,” but really, no one has changed their tune about her since the past few years when she became “solid” with Joe Alwyn. Indeed, maybe her own fear about that relationship ever ending also played into a level of hostility that smacked of an inability to know when to pay something attention and when to brush it off. This isn’t about “muzzling” her for being a woman and speaking her mind, it’s about a show’s right to make a joke if it wants to, and in so doing take the same risk that Gilmore Girls did time and time again with their own barrage of pop culture references. And actually, maybe the show could have “gotten away with” saying, “You go through men faster than Lorelai Gilmore” for that ultra meta cachet.
