• An Ideal Pop Future – “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” Review

    An Ideal Pop Future – “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” Review

    I’m sympathetic to the worries some have expressed about how platforms like TikTok are affecting the music industry. The demands of music to be slick and catchy and relatable for a 10-second audio meme has developed a pop landscape that can sometimes feel built on a foundation of sand – look away from that one bit developed for the TikTok and it all starts to crumble.

    But like many things, it’s not so simple to write off every TikTok musician – and I think there’s something to be said about the fact that “Pop relies too heavily on the hook!” has been a criticism of the genre for essentially as long as it’s existed in its modern form.

    Or, you could take an example like Chappell Roan. In the month or so before the release of her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, the 25-year-old Missouri native was posting TikTok after TikTok promoting her single, “HOT TO GO!”, complete with a cheerleader-inspired dance. She was stitching fans doing the dance, and posting clips of her encouraging it at performances. In many ways, she was doing exactly the thing “TikTok music” detractors loathe the most – hitting the ground and promoting her music in the way the platform demands.

    But there’s something about Chappell that makes her a little different than that bemoaned stock image of a TikTok musician. The first single for her debut, “Pink Pony Club”, had come out in 2020, a collaboration with producer Dan Nigro, known for his work with Olivia Rodrigo. Unlike Rodrigo, though, the project did not hit the way she wanted to, with record company after record company shunning the track for being a bit too odd.

    But amongst a certain audience, the track hit like nothing else. A synthy, melodramatic track about her experience moving from her Midwest hometown to California and finally being able to live as her authentic self, it resonated with many queer people who knew the feeling. Regardless, it took Chappell a stint back in her hometown working as a barista before she could afford to go back out and record her second single, “Naked in Manhattan”, with Nigro.

    Over the next three years, she steadily released single after single. It was around this time I took notice of her and her particular brand of fun, genuine pop.

    Sure, there’s often a sticky, relatable, silly part of a Chappell Roan song. Sure, there’s a reason why she built her fanbase on TikTok. But there’s something exuberant and honest about Chappell’s music, even the sillier tracks. I’ll fall back on “HOT TO GO!” – a track Chappell herself described as a project aiming for the sort of cheesy bounciness of a cheerleader. But, it’s in the way she performs that song, with an intensity and passion that sells the central character as a determined admirer willing to do anything for the object of her affection.

    Or, certainly, there’s a “#relatable” vibe to a song like “My Kink is Karma”, as she drags her ex with zingers like “No need to be hateful in that fake Gucci sweater.” But, again, the performance feels like it’s aware of the silliness, of the campiness, and is performing it with an all-out gusto.

    And that’s the brilliance in an album like The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, I think. The things people hate the most about TikTok music – the manufactured authenticity, the way musicians reach out with a painted grimace of a smile and ask for engagement… Chappell avoids it because she is so all-in in everything she does. There’s no mask – only genuine hope that her listeners will hear her music and have fun in the way she does.

    I love this album, but it’s not a surprise at all. By the time it came out, 9 of its 14 tracks had already been released as singles, and I already knew I loved most of them. The new tracks were only a lovely little bonus, (and one of them, “After Midnight”, has quickly become my favorite of her oeuvre.)

    I hope Chappell’s struggles with the music industry are over. She’s more than proved the viability and ingenuity of her vision. I hope she represents where pop music is going – somewhere that doesn’t take itself too seriously, but with a real undercurrent of heart.

  • “I Know My Age, and I Act Like It” – GUTS Review

    “I Know My Age, and I Act Like It” – GUTS Review

    The opening track of Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS, “all-american bitch”, opens with soft, friendly strings, as the 19-year-old phenomenon croons out, “I’m as light as a feather and as stiff as a board…” But, as you might expect, this soft opening is just a ruse for the absolutely rollicking rock guitars that jolts in for the chorus. The song’s dual nature reflects the dual pressures on a young woman thrust into the spotlight, expected to be so many things at once for so many people.

    I think my favorite line is the way Rodrigo bites out, “I know my age and I act like it”, a line that will come to serve as a core theme to her sophomore album. In the same way that her debut album SOUR came to define a certain 17-year-old frustration, GUTS is an album unapologetically about the feeling of malaise and confusion that comes from exiting your teenage years and staring down the barrel of adulthood. It feels appropriate, then, that the album hits two sounds very hard – softness and hardness, crying and screaming, dreamy ballads and pop punk headbangers.

    I’ll show my hand – I’m generally a bigger fan of the latter, especially with Rodrigo’s strong and rich vocal talent, which has only gotten better since her first showing. I also think it’s something uniquely hers, something that really sets her apart from other pop artists. Many of these songs have a cheeky sense of humor, including my favorite of the album’s singles, “bad idea, right?” The song features a narrator justifying her choice to hook up with her ex, with constant references to the doomed nature of the choice.

    This self-aware skewering of a tumultuous relationship continues in “get him back!”, which plays with the two meanings of its title. Simultaneously, the singer hates her ex and bitterly makes fun of his many flaws… while at the same time missing him. I think the talk-singing verses are so fun, especially with the anthemic feel of the chorus.

    Plus, on probably my favorite track, “love is embarrassing”, she actually sheds the usual pop punk grit for an almost dance-rock feel. It’s got a great energy and a great rhythm to the chorus, making something so infectious – I can’t stop listening to this one. I also can’t help but love what I interpret as her comment on SOUR and the boy she pined for throughout it – “You found a new version of me / And I damn near started World War III / Jesus, what was I even doing?”

    I do get the sense, though, that these collections of sillier, more cynical tracks may turn some fans off who are bigger into her soft, emotional ballads. Personally, the comedy and bitterness is something that feels right for the album, but don’t fret if it’s not your thing. The lead single “vampire”, for example, describes the feeling of being taken advantage of by an older man. But even there, there’s a note of anger, of bitterness, as the song rises in intensity toward the end as the grief turns to righteous anger.

    Not every ballad worked for me, though. “logical” mixes an earnest sound with a lyrical shtick that feels too goofy, as Rodrigo states various illogical statements, like 2 + 2 = 5, to illustrate the lack of rational thinking she displayed in a previous relationship.

    “the grudge” feels very classic Rodrigo, the kind of sweeping ballad that probably could have come right after “drivers license”. What has matured, though, is the way she crafts the narrative of the song, painfully ruminating on the betrayal of someone close and the admission that she hasn’t yet moved on.

    But the slower tempo moment that stuck with me most, I think, was “lacy”. This song surprised me – a twisted love song to another woman Rodrigo is jealous of. The mixture of hatred, jealousy, and admiration gives the seemingly soft guitar song a certain dissonance that the beautiful instrumental bridge absolutely sells. The song builds a strange and confusing landscape, absolutely reflecting the narrator’s state of mind.

    Overall, GUTS is a real show of growth and maturity for the young artist. It takes much of what made SOUR work and pushes it just a little further thanks to a much more purposeful approach. I’ve always loved art that explores this part of life, and perhaps Rodrigo won’t know for another few years, but she absolutely nailed the unique feel of your early 20s in this album. She’s acting her age.

  • The Internet is Trying to Make Me Regret Enjoying These Three Pop Stars

    The Internet is Trying to Make Me Regret Enjoying These Three Pop Stars

    Next week, it’s happening. Olivia Rodrigo is releasing her sophomore album, GUTS. Everyone is eager to see whether or not the young artist can repeat the stunning success of her first album, whether or not she can once again capture the youthful zeitgeist of the moment.

    Or, you know, they’re angry online.

    This has been brewing for a while. It’s something I’ve alluded to in basically every post I’ve ever made about her. But it really does feel like it’s all now coming to a head, and I can’t avoid the constant and infuriatingly mind-numbing discourse surrounding it… so, before I review GUTS next week, I need to address the supposed “beef” between Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift.

    Olivia began her career openly declaring her love and admiration for Taylor Swift. She was a Swiftie from young childhood, and when her music career began with her uploading various covers and original songs to the internet, she covered “Cruel Summer” and was thrilled when Taylor herself posted praise of it. Then, after Olivia’s first single, “drivers license” hit the top of the iTunes charts alongside a few songs from evermore, Olivia posted on Instagram about her excitement about sharing the spotlight with her idol. In response, Taylor commented – “I say that’s my baby and I’m really proud.”

    Throughout the leadup to SOUR’s release, Olivia repeatedly expressed how much Taylor served as a musical inspiration for her, and even insinuated that she felt the more experienced artist was a mentor for her as she entered the music industry.

    That led all the way up to what is, in my mind, a bit of a slip-up for Olivia. Because, as much as she was obviously happy to discuss her love for Taylor and the way her music inspired her own, it was during an interview with Rolling Stone that that vague statement of inspiration became something more concrete. Olivia stated that she loved the bridge of “Cruel Summer,” and decided to do something similar with the bridge of her song “deja vu”.

    Now, if you’ve read my blog posts about Olivia’s music before, you’ll know how I feel about the topic of her inspirations. Despite popular talking points, I quite frankly feel that it’s ridiculous to accuse Olivia of “copying” from the songs she takes inspiration from. The bridges of “Cruel Summer” and “deja vu” have some similarities, sure, but they’re stylistic. The two bridges are not perfect copies of one another, and this is not plagiarism. However…

    Likely thanks to the popular “criticism” (blugh) that Olivia was a serial copier, sparked not only by the “Cruel Summer” comparisons but also the arguably more popular comparisons between the choruses of Olivia’s “good 4 u” and Paramore’s “Misery Business”, we know that Olivia’s legal team offered writing credits on both songs to their respective inspirations, and the writers of “Cruel Summer” were quietly added to the credits of “deja vu” in the summer of 2021.

    We know that this was not due to any threatened legal action due to the testimony from a couple of key figures, namely Jack Antonoff. So no, Taylor Swift was not threatening legal action against the young artist for taking stylistic inspiration from one of her songs. But on the other hand, she also wasn’t saying much in defense of the young artist as she was subsequently raked across the public coals for apparently “admitting” to the copying.

    I don’t know what actually happened here, but my read of the situation is that Olivia’s legal team probably made a defensive move in offering the songwriting credits and Taylor’s team, not wanting to give up a free 50% royalty income source from a very popular song, accepted happily.

    Regardless of my understanding the situation, though, this is the part of the story that always upsets me most. While it certainly makes business sense for Taylor’s team to accept these songwriting credits as there was literally nothing for them to lose from it, from a “fan of music” standpoint, I’ve always found it to be a pretty gross thing for Taylor to allow to happen without comment. Even at my very best faith interpretation of what happened here, she still silently allowed people to assume Olivia had copied her without credit. I’m not cancelling her, I’m not “unstanning” or whatever, but I’m also not willing to let this go by without some criticism. (Let’s all say it folks, everyone deserves criticism, even your favorite artist ever.)

    Taylor Swift’s recent crusade to reclaim her past music shows how much she values artists being rightfully paid for their work, and this situation is absolutely hypocritical of her, I’m sorry to say. I think Hayley Williams and Josh Farro may have a slightly better claim that “good 4 u” references “Misery Business”, but the similarities between “Cruel Summer” and “deja vu” are, to me, obviously not worth stripping 50% of the royalties from Olivia and her collaborator, Dan Nigro. If Taylor were truly acting in line with her morals, she at the very least should have defended Olivia from claims of copying. But, she didn’t.

    But hey, maybe you totally disagree with me. Maybe you believe 100% that Taylor and her team deserved to earn 50% of the royalties from “deja vu”. Regardless, I think it’s important to note how this situation probably felt to Olivia.

    You are a teenage musician. You have just experienced massive, unexpected success from your very first album. You got there, in part, due to the inspiration you gained from one of your lifelong idols, who is subsequently acting as a mentor for you in the industry. And you are more than happy to sing the praises of this idol and give her credit in interviews for inspiring you… and maybe you sing her praises a little too loudly, and people, hungry for drama and clicks, start accusing you of copying.

    Now, in your perception, you didn’t copy. The artistic process necessarily involves taking inspiration from the things you love. But you’re a fresh-faced newbie and your legal team advises you to go ahead and offer songwriting credits to that idol, who accepts them. Then, regardless of whether this idol ever says anything to you about this, she importantly never says anything to the public about this arrangement. So, people draw the conclusions they do, and you look like you stole your success from an artist who is more established than you.

    How do you feel about this idol going forward?

    The reality is this – I don’t know how Olivia Rodrigo feels about Taylor Swift. She’s never directly said much about it. She has alluded to bigger artists acting like “mean girls” to her, without directly stating she felt that way about Taylor. She has obviously distanced herself from Taylor Swift, no longer mentioning her as an inspiration or associating with her publicly. But like… can you really blame her?

    Since then, she told Time about this situation: “It was really frustrating to see people discredit and deny my creativity. Young women are constantly compared to each other. I’m the ‘new this’ or ‘this woman meets that woman,’ and that can be reductive. I’m just Olivia. I’m doing my own thing.”

    Even if Olivia feels no resentment whatsoever to Taylor as a person, she has only ever been burned for associating with her professionally. She has been accused of copying and has even lost royalties from some of her biggest hits. So really, regardless of Olivia’s personal feelings toward Taylor, it’s not surprising to me that she might choose to stop openly connecting herself and her music to her.

    Importantly, I want to say that I don’t necessarily think of either Olivia or Taylor as demons in this situation. Both of their actions are understandable and believable. But of course, public perception of both of them has become absolutely insufferable.

    If you’re listening to Olivia stans, Taylor is an old crone draining the younger artist of her youth and discarding her the moment she grew inconvenient. If you listen to Swifties, Olivia is a whiny, entitled brat who should start cowtowing to Taylor again. If you listen to the larger pop media, the two women are engaged in a whirling cat fight, and every action they’ve taken since is another bomb.

    For example, when Olivia released the lead single of her upcoming album, “vampire”, people speculated with absolutely zero evidence that the song’s chorus, “Bloodsucker, fame-fucker, bleeding me dry like a goddamn vampire” was a reference to Taylor. I say no evidence, because literally every other part of the song indicates that this is a song about an ex-lover, and not about Taylor. Here are some of the lines that make absolutely no sense when applied to Taylor:

    “Look at you, cool guy, you got it”

    “And every girl I ever talked to told me you were bad, bad news /
    You called them crazy, God, I hate the way I called them crazy too”

    “Went for me, and not her /
    ‘Cause girls your age know better”

    “You said it was true love, but wouldn’t that be hard? /
    You can’t love anyone, ’cause that would mean you had a heart”

    The lyrics fit Olivia’s ex, Adam Faze, far more, considering he’s a man older than her who she recently broke up with. Regardless, Olivia was asked about the interpretation anyway, repeatedly, and finally gave the sort of answer/non-answer that is pretty standard for songwriters asked who a song is about. She stated she was surprised that so many people thought the song was about Taylor, and said “I mean, I never want to say who any of my songs are about. I’ve never done that before in my career and probably won’t. I think it’s better to not pigeonhole a song to being about this one thing.”

    This made a lot of Taylor fans angry, because they felt she wasn’t outright denying the interpretation. But to me it absolutely does deny that that was her intentions for the song – why else would she be “surprised” people interpreted it that way? But, like many songwriters, she doesn’t want to make a habit of being expected to outright state what each song is about. Do we really expect every musician to discredit every wild theory about who their music is about? Plus, again, Taylor hasn’t made much effort to defend her in the public eye so… I mean… why would she make a ton of effort herself?

    A similarly stupid interpretation came about when Taylor named Sabrina Carpenter as her opener for many of her international tour dates in the coming months. Here is where I pause my analysis of the “beef” between Taylor and Olivia to briefly discuss the “beef” between Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia.

    As people may or may not be aware, SOUR is an album quite openly inspired by Olivia’s relationship with former High School Musical: The Musical: The Series co-star, Joshua Bassett. The two met and dated while filming the first season of the show, but after they split Bassett very quickly moved on to a relationship with Sabrina Carpenter.

    This aspect of the breakup was apparently a major part of Olivia’s hurt feelings, and she explicitly references Sabrina a few times on SOUR. Below, I have compiled every reference to her on the album:

    • During “traitor”, she seems to suggest that Bassett’s relationship with Sabrina had made her insecure during their relationship, and the quick turnaround of his relationship with her after their split only confirmed her suspicions. Throughout the song, at no point does Olivia insinuate that Sabrina is the traitor – it’s all on Bassett.
    • During “drivers license”, Olivia says “you’re probably with that blonde girl / Who always made me doubt / She’s so much older than me / She’s everything I’m insecure about.” Again, to me, this line has never read to me as a diss toward Sabrina specifically – just stating her own personal insecurity.
    • In “good 4 u”, she briefly mentions “you found a new girl and it only took a couple weeks” and “now you can be a better man for your brand new girl.” Again, these lyrics are more about Bassett than they are about Sabrina.
    • “deja vu” is also a song that references Sabrina as well, but again, mostly in reference to Olivia’s feelings while watching Bassett recreate much of what made her relationship with him special with Sabrina. She also points out the similarities between them – they’re both actresses! (What a diss?)

    The final reference to Sabrina is in “happier”, and it’s one I actually want to analyze a bit. The song is another referencing Olivia’s heartbreak over how fast Bassett moved on to Sabrina, and in it she states “now I’m picking her apart / Like cutting her down will make you miss my wretched heart / But she’s beautiful, she looks kind / She probably gives you butterflies.” This is a pretty self-aware statement from Olivia, who outwardly praises Sabrina for her beauty and kindness, and admits that any negative feelings she feels are just her attempting to justify her hurt over Bassett. Again… nothing to do with Sabrina herself, all to do with Bassett.

    Regardless, as you can probably imagine, people absolutely took these references to Sabrina as diss and shade and were ghoulish to both women for it.

    Once again, my feelings on this situation are nuanced. I believe Olivia had the right to write about her feelings surrounding her relationship, and I don’t believe anything she wrote about Sabrina was disrespectful. At the same time, Sabrina was absolutely targeted by Olivia’s fans, demonized, and slut-shamed for this. This is something that Sabrina would later address in her own music on several occasions, though I’d like to draw attention to these lines from the song “because I liked a boy”:

    “Now I’m a homewrecker, I’m a slut
    I got death threats filling up semi-trucks
    Tell me who I am, guess I don’t have a choice
    All because I liked-
    I’m a hot topic on your tongue
    I’m a rebound gettin’ ’round stealin’ from the young
    Tell me who I am, guess I don’t have a choice
    All because I liked a boy.”

    Here’s the nuance – Sabrina deserves to feel hurt and pain because of the attention Olivia directed toward her. Sabrina also deserves to write about these feelings.

    You might notice a trend here. Two people, exposed to a huge amount of scrutiny, working through their very real and understandable feelings, have their actions perceived as a “beef” and are mutually demonized. You don’t need me to tell you that it’s extremely common to see Olivia fans being absolutely awful to Sabrina and Sabrina fans being absolutely awful to Olivia.

    So anyway, when Taylor Swift named Sabrina Carpenter as her opener, these very fans saw it as further evidence of the ongoing beef. Why else would Taylor Swift choose Sabrina to open her show, if not as a subtle diss, a taking of sides, another shot in the ongoing war between them?

    Except, well, this interpretation is so absolutely disrespectful to Sabrina Carpenter it’s infuriating. The fact that so many people believe that the only reason Taylor would decide to have her open for her on literally one of the biggest worldwide concert tours to ever happen is to subtly diss Olivia Rodrigo? Are you being serious right now?

    Sabrina Carpenter is a talented and really innovative voice in pop music. I’m actually a huge fan of her newest album, emails I can’t send, and she absolutely glows in the spotlight as an opener. Of these three artists, she’s the one I have been a fan of for the least amount of time, but regardless it’s obvious to me that she is an up and coming talent that Taylor absolutely chose for her charisma and compatibility to the energy of the Eras Tour. She earned that spot.

    And actually, you know what, I think this is also disrespectful to Taylor, too. To think she would make such a huge choice just to be petty shows a pretty obvious lack of respect for her own vision and decision-making skill.

    And, actually, I also think this interpretation is hugely disrespectful to Olivia, also. Olivia Rodrigo has proven throughout SOUR that she is a talent to be reckoned with, an artist who can survive controversy and keep making great art. I think the first two singles of GUTS are really promising, and I’m excited to hear the whole album. Making her entire career all about another artist she was a fan of is absolutely underestimating her own independent voice and talent.

    Through it all, what the most frustrating thing about this narrative to me is the apparent assumption that you cannot interface with the career or art of any of these three artists without taking a side in the conflict. I feel the need constantly to justify why I continue to enjoy all three of these artists’ music, and in fan spaces for each of them, I feel kind of out of the ordinary when I express interest in artists from the “other side.”

    But to me, the core of these supposed beefs is this misogynistic expectation that any conflict between women should be the sole focus of their careers. If the entire focus is on this supposed conflict, Taylor Swift is not uplifting a smaller, yet absolutely deserving artist by naming her the opener of her tour, she’s making a calculated, bitchy move. Sabrina Carpenter is not taking advantage of the moment to show off her immense talent and star power, she’s sticking it to the woman who wrote bitchy songs about her. Olivia is not growing and finding her own voice as an artist, she’s still focused on writing about the ultra-bitch who tried to discredit her. It’s the idea that any move any of these women make must necessarily be underhanded and calculated and conniving.

    The reality is, I feel mixed feelings about all three of these women in some ways. I’m a new fan of Sabrina, and I think she’s brilliant. I didn’t get much into what she’s said about Olivia, but I think she’s right to feel hurt even as Olivia was allowed to write about her feelings.

    I love Taylor, but I think she wasn’t living up to her own moral code when she took Olivia’s royalties and let people assume what they wanted. Regardless, it’s not her job to babysit a younger artist, and it makes business sense for her to take the money.

    I love Olivia, but I think she probably shouldn’t have been so loud about her direct inspirations. I also think she made beautiful art about her pain, even though she probably could have been a bit less careless with the way she spoke about Sabrina. Still, she is absolutely allowed to write her complicated feelings down, and I wish people wouldn’t misinterpret what I see as a nuanced take on the “other woman” as a simple diss.

    Through it all, these are nuanced and complicated situations that we lack the full details of. I’m tired of people’s need to simplify and dramatize and take sides. I want to enjoy the art of these three artists I’m a huge fan of without being made to buy into these silly, petty narratives. I’m tired. Please. Can we just enjoy the music?

  • Breaking My Streak

    The following post is a bit of a meandering examination of this blog as a project. Ultimately, though, if you don’t want to read all that, the important thing to know going forward is that this blog’s schedule is going to become a bit less regular. At minimum, I will be posting biweekly, every other Sunday, with hopefully more posts if I find something I want to write about on an off-week.

    If you’re a regular reader of this blog, that’s all you really need to know from this post. If you’d like to hear me talk a bit more about this decision, the history of this blog, and my changing feelings about it, read on.

    On January 1st, 2017, I posted the very first post to this blog.

    It was the culmination of some years of thought and planning and encouragement from friends and family. It was, truly, a labor of love, something that I did because I loved writing and I loved the idea of getting my writing out there.

    January 1st, 2017 was a Sunday. I felt like Sunday was a good day for a post – either the last day or the first day of the week, depending on how you sliced it (I’m a bit of a last day truther, myself). So, I decided to make myself a little weekly deadline. Every Sunday, rain or shine, hating myself or loving myself, I would post something to this blog.

    I won’t lie – sometimes that something was hard-fought and ragged and I hated myself deeply for posting it. I’m not sure it ever showed here on this blog… maybe from time to time… but mostly I wanted to keep up that steady little stream of content.

    I also won’t be overly modest – sometimes the posts were some of my best work. Sometimes it’s stuff I continue to go back to and reread, just because I captured lightning in a bottle.

    But no matter what it was, it went up every Sunday like clockwork. Every Sunday from January 1st, 2017 to August 20th, 2023. According to my calculations, that’s 346 Sundays.

    And then, last Sunday, it stopped.

    This is something that felt a little inevitable, in some ways. Throughout the roughly 6 years I’ve been posting, as my streak remained unbroken week after week, I felt in the back of my mind like one day it was going to give. There would be one week where a post just couldn’t happen.

    When I imagined this eventual day, I always figured it would have to be something huge. A major disaster. A huge tragedy. Something horrible.

    In reality, though, I didn’t even notice I had forgotten to post until 10 pm that Sunday, lying in bed. I realized it, not with dread or horror, but with a kind of guilty “Oops.”

    I could have, in that moment, gotten up and pulled something out of a hat. It would not be the first time I did something like that, in fact. Plenty of weeks have gotten close to slipping by without a post. But I didn’t.

    I was comfortable, maybe? I didn’t have any good ideas, definitely. For whatever reason it was, I just went to sleep. For whatever reason it was, I think I decided it was time to face the inevitable, the thing I was always worried would someday happen. It was time to break my streak.

    Here’s the reality – when I started this blog, I was a senior in high school. I am now in the first semester of my second year of my masters. I’m working on a thesis. I’m teaching my own class. I’m working on applying to PhD programs. I am reading and writing and thinking and reading and writing and thinking… a lot.

    There’s this saying that I’ve found surprisingly resonant lately – quit while you’re ahead. When I started this blog, I absolutely would not have found that phrase compelling at all. I never quit. I wasn’t a quitter. I was a good student and a good writer and I did not quit, anything. When I realized I had forgotten something, I dropped everything and did it right there. I did not let myself slip, I did not allow myself to falter.

    Back then, I was really proud of this trait of mine. It made me a good worker, a sharp thinker.

    Nowadays, though, I have, let’s say, chilled out. I think I’ve experienced enough failure, my fault or no, for me to realize that no amount of perfection is going to prevent me from having to deal with chaos. I cannot do it all. I cannot live my life on an unbroken streak of perfection. And honestly, I can’t do my best work there either.

    Quit while you’re ahead… well, maybe this isn’t what it means. But to me, it means being intentional with taking a step back when you’re able to. It means not waiting until you’re overwhelmed and drowning to ask for help.

    I’ve actually been pretty proud of my output on this blog in the past few months. I hit a slog in my blog (and also, sort of, my life) that has since lifted, and I feel a lot of creativity and excitement about the things I’ve been posting. So, I think I am ahead in a lot of ways here. I think I’m doing great work, great enough work that I just can’t accept pulling some random post out of nowhere when I truly don’t have much I want to say.

    I don’t really feel the need to prove myself anymore by having this unbroken streak. I have other things in my life I’m proud of that aren’t this blog – even if I am still very much proud of it. It doesn’t have to be my one thing anymore. And so, I can say that… things are going to change a bit around here.

    Just a little bit. I still do want to post as regularly as I can, maybe even weekly sometimes. But I think, officially, for my best to continue to happen, I need to make this blog officially bi-weekly instead. If I have something to say on a week, I will, trust me. But if I don’t, I think it’s okay to throw it to the next week.

    One of the things I said when I first started this blog was that I was doing it for me. I think that’s one of the smartest things I said back then. If you’ve been reading this blog, I appreciate it, I do. But ultimately, I am writing it for me and me alone, and I think I need to tone my posting schedule down a bit.

    Anyway. That’s all. See you guys when I see you.

  • The Man, the Mythos – “Unreal Unearth” Review

    The Man, the Mythos – “Unreal Unearth” Review

    Hozier’s newest album, Unreal Unearth, begins with a two-song suite called “De Selby”. The song’s title is in reference to a character from Flann O’Brien’s 1967 novel, The Third Policeman, a classic surrealist piece of Irish literature. It’s beyond me, exactly, to understand the literary reference, as it’s to a book I’ve never read, but these two songs absolutely carried me away on my first listen.

    Part one of the suite has a lullaby-like quality, with soft strings and Hozier’s gentle vocals floating over it. But there’s an ominous quality to it – with creaking, lurching sounds all around. According to Wikipedia, de Selby was a character who was dead without knowing it, and this song mirrors that in a certain way. It’s a sweetness surrounded by something tense and old and strange. The end of the first part involves Hozier slipping into Gaelic. This is a language I don’t speak, but from the man himself, the ending part involves him speaking of a love that is dark and that morphs the speaker and the lover together.

    The second part is something very different. After the choral softness of the Gaelic poetry that ends the first part, part two explodes out of discordant, falling strings with bass and guitar. It’s a full-on rock song, a defiant statement of the narrator’s loyalty to their love.

    These two songs serve as a beautiful little microcosm of what the entire album is. The first part’s naïve wonder as something dark and deadly takes place and the second part’s defiant loyalty to their love despite warning signs is a reoccurring theme that carries throughout Unreal Unearth.

    Hozier is one of those artists who sometimes feels a bit lost in his fans’ reception of him. He’s an ethereal forest spirit, possessed by the ghost of a Victorian lesbian longing for her lover. His first and biggest hit, “Take Me to Church”, is continuously caught in a stock discourse loop, as fundamentalist Christians mistake the metaphor of the song for reality just in time for better-knowing progressives to point and laugh.

    Through it all, it’s sometimes hard for me to feel connected to the man himself. That’s fine, in most cases. His music is beautiful, poetic, and distinctively his. Just because he gets a bit lost in his own mythos isn’t a problem when I get transfixed by the beauty of songs like “Shrike” or “Work Song”, which carry their own mythos so perfectly.

    But it’s this mysterious aura that made the clarity of the personal message in Unreal Unearth so surprising to me.

    This is not to say that Unreal Unearth is devoid of mythology. Far from it, actually. The album is meant to be an auditory journey down through the layers of Hell, Dante’s Inferno-style. Plus, many of its best songs are absolutely rife with mythological imagery.

    Take one of the most heartbreaking songs of the album, “I, Carrion (Icarian)”. If you are familiar with your Greek mythology, you might immediately pick up on the main symbol of the song just from the title, a reference to Icarus. The son of Daedalus who escaped the Labyrinth on wax wings made by his father, Icarus is most well-known for his demise, when he flew too close to the sun, causing the wax in his wings to melt and he to fall to his death.

    But this, too, is not meant as a song about Icarus in the traditional sense. Instead, the narrator seems wholly unaware of the fate of Icarus, and the subsequently well-known wisdom that comes from his story – the danger of flying too close to the sun. Indeed, the narrator in the song instead seems certain that his love will keep him afloat, even as everyone with even a passing knowledge of Greek mythology can take one look at the symbols in the song and know exactly what fate is in store for our narrator.

    In this way, Hozier turns the mythological into the personal, using these symbols and allusions in ways I haven’t really seen. Connecting Icarus to a fall is expected, using that expectation to create a sort of dramatic irony as we watch a narrator over-confidently certain that he will stay flying… well, it says something so brutally personal, especially as this theme re-emerges again and again.

    I’ll say it. Unreal Unearth is a very personal album about heartbreak, at least to me. It’s a diving inward, an attempt to extract and analyze every feeling, every choice that led to this heartbreak. It feels like a familiar exercise – being brutally disappointed by something and choosing to try and figure out how that heartbreak is your own fault, how it could have been prevented if you could only have seen things start to go wrong…

    Sometimes, this exercise uncovers lovely moments. I’m really fond of the bright spot that is Brandi Carlile’s feature on this album, “Damage Gets Done”. It’s a swinging, bright track with wonderful build that describes the early tribulations of a romance. Even then, though, the endings of this relationship are mentioned explicitly in the chorus, as both vocalists state that they “didn’t know when the feeling ended.” In a way, it carries the theme of mythology in the way it plays with the ideas of young and reckless lovers who stay together through it all, a common societal idea that nonetheless wasn’t able to save these two real people in their very real relationship.

    Hozier dropped a lot of singles for this album, which, I think, made preparing for it a little bit of an odd process. I knew the direction of the album, but it felt like such a specific direction that hearing these bits and pieces of it felt strange. Placing these singles in their spot, then, gave many of them a new clarity and direction.

    This is true of my favorite single, “Unknown/Nth”. It’s here that the heartbreak really settles. All the way in the 9th circle of Hell, representing treachery, it is here that the narrator, who had lapsed between unabating love to denial of the problems in their relationship, finally comes to understand the betrayal that has taken place. I think when I first heard this song, I found the tone of it a little strange, with many of the lyrics feeling angry but the strings and instrumental choices feeling almost relieved. In context, though, it makes sense. This anger is a moment of clarity, a breath. It’s steel-eyed certainty when so much of the rest of the album was hazy.

    It’s these moments that really make the process of listening to Unreal Unearth a very personal one. It feels like a meaningful, bitter connection to someone experiencing a great heartbreak, in denial, in grief, and, finally, in acceptance.

  • GUEST POST – Jenny: The Japanese Barbie You’ve Never Heard Of

    For this week, I have a special treat! My dear friend Madison has written a really fascinating history tied into Barbie. I was really charmed by these adorable dolls, might have to get one myself!

    The first Barbies were manufactured in Japan, but it wasn’t until a couple of years later that she was introduced to the Japanese market as every little girl’s “new American friend.” Contrary to expectations set in other markets, Barbie sales were slow. Things started to look up with some changes to Barbie’s wardrobe and hair to appeal more to Japanese trends over the next couple of years, and her sales steadily increased, peaking in 1966. Unfortunately for Mattel, 1967 brought some major competition.

    Takara (now Takara Tomy) was looking to expand into the fashion doll market. In 1966 they started developing their own doll. While Barbie was revolutionary for appearing older than most dolls and allowing kids to imagine and act out adult situations, Takara was looking to reflect their target audience. Licca-chan was the product of their year of development. A 5th grade fashion doll, much shorter than Barbie with a round, cute face styled to look like the heroine of a children’s manga, Licca-chan debuted in 1967 and captured the hearts of many. Licca-chan clicked with the young girls of Japan in a way that Barbie hadn’t, and quickly outsold her competition. By 1969 Mattel had withdrawn Barbie from the Japanese market. Mattel also moved Barbie’s production to other countries, which was probably unrelated. But I like to think that Licca-chan was just that intimidating. They had to get out of there.

    Many years later Mattel decided to give Barbie another shot in Japan, this time with the help of Takara. After seeing the way Takara understood what the market wanted, Mattel must have felt confident leaving their brand to the company. Mattel gave Takara the ability to design their own version of Barbie, and presumably any Barbie-affiliated characters. Incidentally, Takara had a scrapped project for a 17 year old version of Licca-chan. This slightly older sculpt was the perfect base to start developing their Barbie. She retained the soft, cute features of Licca-chan that had made her so popular, but with a much more mature face. Barbie’s look drew heavily from anime, with her large sparkly eyes and blunt bangs. Not only did this new Barbie succeed, she outsold Licca-chan in 1985 and ‘86. Takara Barbie also had a couple of friends, Ellie and Flora. They were Takara original characters, as Takara did not want to bring over Midge and Skipper, preferring to leave the friend and little sister market to their own characters, including Licca-chan. Ken, though, was chosen to receive his own Takara design.

    Despite Barbie’s high sales in 1986, Mattel ended their relationship with Takara that year for unknown reasons. Takara retained the rights to their dolls, but Mattel took the branding. In some cases that might have been the end of it, but Takara launched a huge rebranding campaign to rename their dolls and keep them in the public consciousness. As the story goes, Barbie took a lead role in a musical called “Heroes.” She played a girl named Jenny, and this role was such a big deal to her that she changed her name to that of her character. So, Takara’s Barbie doll became Jenny. Ken was renamed Jeff, also a name used in the musical. The Takarazuka Revue, a real, very famous all-female theater troupe, put on 20 performances of “Heroes” as part of the renaming campaign.

    The Jenny brand continued for many years with surprisingly few changes to the doll herself. In 1991 there was an attempt to change her face mold, but this went over so poorly it was changed back before the year was out. 

    Picture of Ellie from Kurupaya.com

    Jenny would gain new friends and even new boyfriends (sorry Jeff!), including the return of Ellie and Flora from her Barbie days. There were many collaborations with other companies, such as Timotei (named after the shampoo of the same name) and Juliana (named after a popular discotheque). Both of these companies have since gone out of business and the name rights transferred elsewhere, leaving them as nameless friends of Jenny on the official site. Or in Juliana’s case, simply “J” as Juliana fans campaigned hard to prevent her name being changed fully. One of Jenny’s most interesting friends is Chelsea – a doll with a face mold that belonged to another company. In 1986 Ooike had manufactured their own doll who looked very similar to Takara’s. She didn’t sell well and was mostly forgotten until the sculpt was used for Jenny’s new friend – and long lost twin sister. Unfortunately that storyline didn’t get to conclude before Chelsea was retired as a character, potentially due to disputes with Ooike. The circumstances of Chelsea’s creation are not quite clear, but there must have been a short-lived deal between the two companies. If only it had lasted long enough for Jenny and Chelsea to realize they were twins brought back together through Jenny’s idol career. While not all of Jenny’s friends have backstories or real-life histories as complex as Chelsea’s, they all have short biographies and different looks that make them feel unique and charming, even if it’s hard to remember and recognize the 60+ characters released during the Jenny brand’s lifetime. 

    The final friend released during this original era was Mirai in 2007. The 90s were a very successful time for the Jenny brand and that seemed to continue into the 2000s, but for unknown reasons the brand went dormant at the beginning of 2008. The official Jenny fan club, which had been running since the beginning, was closed. Things did not look very good for Jenny! In 2010 Jenny came back, rebranded as Love Jenny, but once again in 2016 things went quiet. There were rumors that Takara’s president didn’t like Jenny, allegedly he didn’t see the point of dolls for an audience any older than the audience of Licca-chan. Licca-chan was on her 5th generation by then, and beloved as always. She is as synonymous with dolls in Japan as Barbie is in the United States. Jenny fans weren’t completely out of luck, as Takara’s factory/museum/store, Licca-chan Castle, would occasionally create reproductions of Jenny and friends. And those occasional reproductions would be the only Jennys released for 5 years.

    In 2020 Takara revisited the idea of a 17 year old Licca-chan, releasing the new series #Licca. The series focuses more on modern aesthetics, including bright colors and two-toned hair on most of the dolls. Of course Licca-chan’s interests grew with her, with social media and going to concerts included when listing her likes. Licca-chan also started making new friends in high school. Yui Yui was introduced in 2022 and is a brand-new character to the Takara lineup. And then in 2023 Jenny fans got a major surprise.

    Jenny, who began as a prototype head for 17 year old Licca-chan, is now a friend of 17 year old Licca-chan. This #Jenny doll release even comes with a Love Jenny shirt and a magazine featuring one of the 2010 Jenny releases on the cover. Jenny has been through many branding changes over 50 years, and it was a relief to me to see her brought back in a new way. She is a major part of doll history that I personally think is very cool. Plus, Jenny and Licca-chan have existed in parallel for so long it’s really nice to see them cross over officially, and oddly heartwarming to see these two dolls meeting as friends after all these years of intertwined histories.

    Sources:

    English list and gallery of Jenny and Friends: https://www.barbigirl.com/jennyhome.htm 

    Jenny wikipedia (Japan): https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B8%E3%82%A7%E3%83%8B%E3%83%BC 

    Licca-chan wikipedia (Japan): https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%AA%E3%82%AB%E3%81%A1%E3%82%83%E3%82%93# 

    Barbie wikipedia (Japan): https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%90%E3%83%BC%E3%83%93%E3%83%BC 

    Museum with old Jenny images: https://muuseo.com/kobeni071125/items/7 

    Jenny discontinued speculation: https://kuppasama.net/jenniechan-hanbaicyuusi/

    Jeff info page: https://kurupaya.com/doll-coordinate/4348/

    Chelsea http://minnagi.client.jp/bcg/doll/mydoll/ellina/1.html 

    More Chelsea http://www.ne.jp/asahi/nyajitan/lazy-club/jenny/chelsea.html 

    Eriena https://blog.goo.ne.jp/liccakate1211/e/56a3db5bbdae540db96c405c5a37fcdd

    Jenny friends list (with pictures): https://kurupaya.com/jenny-and-friends/352/ 

    Jenny face molds: https://saitoumikako.com/kisekaeya/blog/jenny/entry-583.html 

  • The Sisyphean Trap of the “Era”

    I’m in my “criticizing cultural concepts” era.

    On June 26th, Olivia Rodrigo unveiled the cover for her sophomore album, Guts. Lying on a gradient background of dark lilac, she wears rings bearing the album’s name, licking one thumb and eyeing the camera.

    The creation of a sophomore album is a bit of a dramatic thing for many artists. One might think that the debut album is the toughest – after all, it’s your first time, you’re inexperienced, you have to struggle to break into people’s consciousness. Surely if you manage to gain a great amount of a success on your first album, the second one is nothing to worry about, right?

    But that’s obviously not true. Young, unproven artists remain young and unproven even with a successful first showing, their success sometimes even viewed as a fluke. It’s when you can recreate that success a second time that you truly seem like you’re going somewhere.

    Such is the obstacle Rodrigo faces. Not just in spite of the massive success of her debut album SOUR, winning 2 Grammys and unprecedented chart success, but really because of that massive success. It’s a lot to live up to. Can she do it?

    Of course, her fans were more than excited to hear about new music coming from her. But many more in the wider pop community took one look at the new cover and declared it a bad sign. And it all came down to its color.

    You see, there’s nothing wrong with making your sophomore album have a lilac background on the cover. Unless, of course, your debut album also featured a purple background.

    Olivia’s fans, the “livies”, immediately sprang to her defense. Yes, the color was the same, but many other factors clearly differentiated GUTS from SOUR. The accent red color seen in various promotional photos and the color of Rodrigo’s lips! The darker gradient in the background! They weren’t the exact same shade of purple.

    Or, you got fans who argued that the purple was an intentional comment on the album before it. This was SOUR but darker, a continuation of the themes of the first album but with a bit more maturity, signified by the similar-but-different color of the second.

    What you didn’t see, at least not in the Twitter fan spaces I was scrolling while making this post, was a core question. Why did Olivia have to change up her aesthetic for her new album, anyway?

    At the same time, in another adjacent music fandom sat the Swifties, who were in a flurry of activity as Taylor Swift wrapped up the first U.S. leg of her massively successful Eras Tour. The tour was built around a celebration of the 10 different albums Taylor had recorded, each usually referred to as an “era”, a timespan when that album’s aesthetic colored every part of Taylor’s career and marketing. These eras were distinctly different from one another, each with their own color, associated imagery, moods, and styles of clothes. Just compare the black, gothic snake imagery of reputation to the fluffy, pink, sparkly romance of Lover, two albums right next to each other in the history of Taylor’s career.

    The term “era” has a bit of a mysterious origin. I wasn’t able to uncover where exactly it originated, even within Taylor Swift’s own career. Know Your Meme states that the phrase “in your flop era” was in use to describe downturns in an artist’s career, a term in use since at least 2008, possibly earlier. This suggests to me that this likely wasn’t a term that originated with Taylor Swift, as in 2008 she had only just released her second album and presumably was not yet marketing her career with distinct eras.

    But even if we don’t know where the concept of an artist era comes from, it’s a pretty major part of popular culture nowadays. While Taylor Swift has certainly gotten the art of switching up her brand entirely for each new album release down to a science, many other artists have done the same thing as a way to market new albums.

    Billie Eilish, for example, premiered a new bouncy blonde hairstyle and a more sophisticated Hollywood glam look on red carpets leading up to the release of her album Happier than Ever, a huge departure from the grungy, neon, big t-shirts and little shorts vibe of her first album, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? Or, there’s Katy Perry, who tried to fully change up her image for her album Witness, cropping her hair into a blonde bob and pushing a more socially conscious image for herself to… far less success than Billie or Taylor. K-Pop, as a genre, is also hugely “era” focused, with groups changing up their styles from album to album and even from release to release.

    The act of making each album have a distinct aesthetic and message does make sense from a marketing standpoint. Making albums distinct from one another can drive up excitement and intrigue for them. Plus, when every new piece of work from an artist has a completely different vibe, it encourages fans to buy more merch, since one singular t-shirt can no longer effectively “sum up” their love for that artist.

    But what I find interesting about the concept of an artist era is how simultaneously ubiquitous and completely niche it is. If you’re a huge fan of Taylor Swift and that’s all you pay attention to, I can see why you might think eras are the only way to go when it comes to marketing. She has certainly made distinctive eras into big business for herself, especially with the success of the Eras Tour.

    But there’s a huge number of artists who don’t really do anything like this at all. Ed Sheeran, for example, has coasted on literally the exact same aesthetics and concepts for his music for over a decade now. His newest tour, the +-=x Tour (yes, that’s really what it’s called) is a summation of the mathematic equation he’s been working on for his entire career. No one has ever pushed against this, no one has ever asked Ed to change himself up for each new album.

    And really, this just isn’t a thing at all for most male artists, who can mostly coast on their preferred comfortable style for as long as they’d like to, with style evolutions mainly coming not from marketing but really only their own preference. Long-popular artists like Drake, The Weeknd, Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake, Post Malone… none of them have had to majorly change up their style, aesthetic, or presentation to remain relevant.

    Taylor Swift herself, by the way, has commented on this particular trend, where women must change themselves constantly and men don’t.

    “We do exist in this society where women in entertainment are discarded in an elephant graveyard by the time they’re 35,” she said in her Miss Americana documentary for Netflix. “Everyone’s a shiny new toy for, like, two years. The female artists that I know of have reinvented themselves 20 times more than the male artists. They have to, or else you’re out of a job. Constantly having to reinvent. Constantly having to find new facets of yourself that people find to be shiny.”

    If even the queen of eras herself has something to criticize about them, and if they’re so unequally applied, why is it that Olivia Rodrigo must necessarily change up her entire aesthetic, or face turning her GUTS era into a flop era?

    To me, this debate is overblown before we really have all the facts. GUTS is not out yet (though I already do like the two lead singles for it). The album’s aesthetic does appear to be trying something different than the school notebook, stickers and decoration of SOUR, with a more horror-inspired vibe. We don’t know yet if it will be as successful as SOUR.

    But it’s the conversation around it that fascinates me most. The idea that we can predict the success or failure of a young artist based on how different a shade of purple she’s using in her new album cover seems like a parody of a cultural concept being applied too harshly to artists. But in some way, it’s a true reflection of the way young artists, particularly young female artists, are placed on a precarious tightrope and told that any misstep will lose everything for them.

    Did GUTS doom itself to failure the moment a graphic artist decided to make the background purple instead of red? It remains to be seen. But what is obvious to me is the grueling expectations we put on young women to change and change and change and never stop exciting us… or else.

  • Deeply Analyzing the Surprise Song Segment of the Eras Tour

    Deeply Analyzing the Surprise Song Segment of the Eras Tour

    Despite the fact that the Eras Tour is already making headline after headline for boosting local economies, breaking records, providing generous bonuses to its workers, and even causing small earthquakes, to me, it’s easy to say that the most talked-about portion of the Eras Tour is its surprise song segment.

    For those not in the know, Taylor Swift’s intensive 3.5 hour exploration of her 17-year career is organized into 10 segments, all themed after a different one of her albums except one – the second-to-last: the surprise song segment. As the name suggests, this is the one segment of the show which has a different set of two songs each night – a surprise two songs!

    In a show that has been so obsessively documented, from the setlist to the outfits to the stage to even the playlist of songs that plays before Taylor takes the stage, the surprise songs are the most reliable forms of uncertainty in the show, the thing that makes each show the most distinct from each other.

    This is not the only reason why this segment of the show has become such a thing amongst Swifties, however, and it’s causing some conflict. It’s these reasons that I want to explore in today’s post – an obsessively analytical dive into one roughly 10-minute portion of the show.

    At this point, I can say that I have a pretty good knowledge of the surprise song portions. I have now attended 2 shows myself, the first of which I reviewed. I chose not to talk too much about my second show mostly because I didn’t want to repeat myself, but also because, I’ll be honest, I sometimes feel a little embarrassed by my luck of getting to attend two shows of this extremely huge and iconic tour. Ironically, though, that first reason is made moot in this particular discussion, because it was the surprise song portion that marked the biggest difference between my two shows.

    I attended Chicago night 2 on June 3rd and Cincinnati night 1 on June 30th and got to witness Taylor play “You All Over Me” and “I Don’t Want to Live Forever” in Chicago and “I’m Only Me When I’m With You” and “evermore” in Cincinnati. It’s these four songs that have become some sort of badge of honor for me, a kind of souvenir that says “Yes, I was there on that night to see those specific songs.” It sets me apart from the hundreds of thousands of Swifties in attendance at other dates and locations.

    But even before my shows, I was already closely following the surprise songs at other shows. See, the Eras Tour is meant as a celebration of Taylor’s entire career, as shown with the wide ranging selection of songs in the setlist and also, in my opinion, its immense length. But Taylor also has a massive catalogue of songs, one that was only barely scratched by the 40+ songs in the actual setlist. For that reason, fans and Taylor herself have suggested that one purpose of the surprise song segment was to give even more of her songs the chance to shine on stage, opening up the possibility that nearly every single song in her repertoire would be played at least once during the tour.

    This meant that there was reason to keep track of which songs had been played and which had yet to make an appearance, something that many Swifties, myself included, took to with all the gusto of a dedicated baseball fan crunching the batting averages of their favorite player.

    Yes, I have a spreadsheet, which lists every one of Taylor’s released songs (I think), and columns to note when, where, with what instrument (guitar or piano), and with what guests (as guests make occasional appearances during the surprise song segments) each song is played.

    This spreadsheet also allowed me to make a wishlist. The wishlist was more than just a simple list of songs I would enjoy hearing during my surprise song segments. It was also the way I could roughly calculate the chances I might get one of my favorite songs at one of my shows. It gave me a strange sort of joy to watch this percentage chance hover around 20-25 percent as shows came and went. And while I’m not sure most other Swifties were doing the same calculations I was, the sentiment of hoping for a favorite song to be a surprise song was shared pretty widely.

    Now, yes, this was a rough calculation, making some logical leaps, because it had to assume that each of the unplayed songs had an equal chance of showing up, which is almost certainly not true. After all, Taylor herself was the one making these surprise song selections, so there were probably songs that she was more likely to reach for than others due to personal preference or thematic significance.

    This could be as simple as songs that name dropped the place they were played – it was no coincidence she chose to play “Welcome to New York” at Metlife Stadium, for example – or as complex as song pairings that created a unique kind of take on the original songs.

    It’s hard to talk about this without compromising some of my morals. Speculating on personal details of Taylor’s life and emotions is pretty par for the course for most Swifties, and I won’t pretend I haven’t done it myself with friends or by reading others’ speculation. But as for publishing my speculations myself on this platform… eh, I just don’t love doing it.

    On the other hand, many of Taylor’s song pairings, and in particular the two sets of surprise songs I got at my two shows, feel to me like Taylor using her song catalogue to process real emotions. This is something Taylor has stated she does on numerous occasions during this tour, including most recently this past Saturday in LA’s Sofi Stadium, where she said:

    “Touring and playing songs that I’ve written has become sort of a coping mechanism for me, because when I write a song it’ll be like, I’m in my room, and I’m feeling a feeling that I think I might be the only person in the world to have ever felt… but basically, when I go and I play a song for you, and you guys are like, singing the words to it, whether or not this is true, I take it as you saying, ‘I felt that way too.’ That’s how I take it: You’re singing the words to the song that I wrote, I take it as you being like, ‘Yeah, no I felt that way too. You’re not alone in feeling that. We’ve all been through it. Just push through this.’ And I take it a step further, and I take it to mean that everything’s gonna be okay, and then I feel better.”

    And, I’m so sorry, but with recent events it’s hard not to read a little into some of the surprise song choices. After all, news that Taylor had split from her over five-year boyfriend Joe Alwyn broke the second week of April, and suddenly a lot of recent events started to take on a new meaning. For one, the sudden setlist swap of “invisible string,” a very Joe-focused love song, for “the 1”, a fond yet flippantly scathing song reflecting on a past relationship the first week of April suddenly had some explanation.

    And yes, the surprise songs reflected it, too. Just a few weeks after the news broke, she was pairing some of her saddest songs together – “Death by a Thousand Cuts” and “Clean”, “Wonderland” and “You’re Not Sorry”. Or, there was the concert where she paired the hopeful song about starting over in a new relationship while feeling the pain of the old “Begin Again” with the bitter “Cold as You”. Or, there was the fact that certain songs weren’t being played – it seems meaningful that the two albums with the most Joe love songs, reputation and Lover, are the most untouched surprise song albums.

    But for me, at no show was this emotional working-through of the breakup more apparent than at my Chicago night 2 performance. She brought out country singer Maren Morris to duet on “You All Over Me” from the Fearless Taylor’s Version vault and shocked the entire audience with the choice of her collaboration with ZAYN, “I Don’t Want To Live Forever.” In hindsight, though, the two songs about struggling to move on from an important relationship seemed to be a pointed choice, one that the clear emotion in Taylor’s voice more than conveyed.

    Let me be clear – I don’t think Taylor was attempting to communicate some sort of secret message to her fans with these choices. No, instead, it felt to me like a woman making song choices that felt resonant to her at the time, completely in line with things she has said in the past about the way performance felt like a working through of difficult emotions.

    Then, almost a month later, at my Cincinnati night 1 show, her song pairings suggested something a little different. Taylor was exuberant and joyful the entire night, full of energy and cracking jokes in a way I hadn’t seen in Chicago. And, when she pulled out her acoustic guitar and played “I’m Only Me When I’m With You”, she instructed the audience to jump with her during the chorus. The cut from her debut album is a happy, youthful song about friendship and belonging. Then, her performance of “evermore” on the piano rang out with a ton of emotion – a song exploring the depths of the singer’s sadness, only to end on a note of hope.

    The connection between these two songs felt so potent to me – a song about friendship and belonging, a moment of dancing and singing and jumping together, and then a song about healing from some of the most painful experiences of your life. It felt like an acknowledgement of what gets you out of the deepest pits of despair – friendship and connection and love. I can’t comment on how Taylor is truly feeling about the end of her longest term relationship to date, but in that night I felt her gratitude and joy for how far she had come in healing from it so far.

    This is the sort of thing that can happen in a constantly changing set like the surprise song set. Based on her feelings, on the context of the time, Taylor selects two resonant songs to her and to the audience.

    In the case of the surprise song set I never would have chosen, my Chicago songs, they elevated two songs I had never really paid much attention to before and gave them extra meaning – tying them to a special memory for me. Sure, these weren’t two of my favorite songs ever, but wasn’t I so lucky to see her harmonize beautifully with Maren Morris? Wasn’t it so cool to see her perform such a deep cut as her collaboration with ZAYN? Wasn’t this a special memory, one that not everyone who attended the tour could say was theirs?

    In the case of two songs that were on my wishlist, though…

    This is where I reveal to you that my Cincinnati songs, “I’m Only Me When I’m With You” and “evermore” were both songs on my fabled wishlist. Yes, I’m that lucky to have gotten not one, but two of my absolute favorite songs, both favorites on their respective albums. I am not proud of the ugly gasps I let out, the way I threw my hands to my mouth and, yes, cried a little at these choices. But this is the potential of the surprise song segment. It’s a slim chance you’re going to get a favorite song, but if you do… it feels like winning the lottery. It’s a moment you’ll never forget.

    Taking all of this into account, I think you can begin to understand why the surprise song segment is such an emotional centerpiece for Swifties. It’s why a dedicated tangent of them closely follow what songs are played and when, and react with devastation if one of their favorites is played at a show they didn’t attend (or exuberant joy if it’s played at a show they did.)

    But this is where the conflict starts. Yes, the disappointment and devastation of the surprise song segment is likely, in many cases, a bit purposefully overblown for dramatic effect. I am certain the many tumblr users posting “[HUNGER GAMES CANNON BOOM]” whenever a fan favorite is played isn’t seriously convinced that this is a deadly tragedy. But… it’s hard to ignore that for some fans, the surprise song segment is both a status symbol and a major source of disappointment.

    I think there’s an interesting conversation to be had in general about the Eras Tour serving as a sort of status symbol, but amongst fans who have gone to the tour, which surprise song you witnessed is sometimes used as a way to sort the haves and the have-nots. Again, I think this is usually a bit of a joke, but there is genuine jealousy I’ve witnessed.

    The slightly more real conflict, though, is the disappointment. The small but vocal minority of Swifties who take to the internet to express their frustration that the surprise songs they got weren’t good enough. This has been going on throughout the tour, but as Taylor wraps up the first U.S. leg, she’s begun to repeat some songs, which has led to some anger amongst fans who apparently were expecting their own special, unique song.

    It sounds like entitled whining and… well, it is. But it’s understandable when you think about the absolute momentous importance placed on this segment. In a tour watched by the world, enjoyed by so many, the surprise song segment is a moment where the concert gets to feel like yours and yours alone. For fans who got fan-favorites or cool guests or their very favorite songs, it’s a source of pride. For fans who didn’t… I can see where the jealousy can come from.

    I’d like to think I have a good perspective, because I got to experience both ends of it. My Chicago songs weren’t favorites of mine and weren’t songs I would have chosen. My Cincinnati songs were essentially the best pairing I could have personally asked for. I would love to act high and mighty and say I feel absolutely no difference in affection for these two pairings of songs, but that would be laughably wrong. I am going to remember my Cincinnati songs with such fondness because, well, they felt like such personal choices for me.

    But I also do want to push back against those fans who act devastated if they don’t get the songs they wanted. Chicago was certainly not songs I wanted. But they were really interesting and unique choices – choices that surprised me and made the night feel distinct. It was clear that Taylor made these choices with an eye to their emotional and thematic resonance, and she performed them beautifully.

    Even if I hated those two choices, though, there was the entire experience that surrounded them to enjoy. As dramatic as the surprise song segment might seem, it is a drop in the bucket of the magnificence on display all 3.5 hours of the tour – and honestly, before and after, too. Both concert experiences were truly amazing and unique because of the people I got to meet, the fun outfits I wore and got to see others wear, and the energy and joy of the crowd.

    If you attended tour and got surprise songs that disappointed you… I encourage you to reframe your thinking a bit. Sure, it might be a bit disappointing – I get it. But getting to go to such an incredible concert, getting to witness a unique little segment just for you and your crowd is something special. Even if you got a repeat song, Taylor continues to pair the repeats with new other songs, making new meanings and bringing new context.

    The Eras Tour is amazing. Getting to witness it, even just once, is amazing. And those two songs aren’t going to make or break it. I promise.

  • The Top 10 Most Edible World Cup Kits

    You heard me.

    So, listen. I am not a fan of sports. However, this past year, I celebrated my six year anniversary with my partner, Kirby, who is very much a fan of sports. All sports.

    It’s certainly not required that you be into the things your partner is into, but when you spend enough time with someone and hear them talk about something a lot, it’s not uncommon to find yourself a bit more interested in that thing than you would have been otherwise. This happened to Kirby with Taylor Swift and, I admit, it’s happened to me (a bit) with sports.

    Not all sports. I am not a sports fan. But, well, I’ve been following the U.S. Women’s Team this year at the FIFA World Cup.

    It’s hard not to root for the women, playing their very first world cup on equal pay with the comparably terrible men’s team. Plus, there’s a very good chance they’ll do well this year, so despite the crazy hours these games have been at (they’re in Australia, after all), Kirby and I have done our best to keep up with as many games as we can.

    But, despite all this, I am not a sports fan, and I am uninterested in making myself into one. So, for my FIFA blog post, I thought I’d do something a little different.

    You see, a bit of a running gag between Kirby and I as we’ve been watching these matches is discussing the edibility of each team’s kit (AKA, their uniforms). Okay, it’s not a conversation, it’s mostly just me continuing with a bit because it amuses me and me alone. What I mean by edibility is on TidePod rules – even though I know, logically, that these soccer uniforms are not edible, how much is my monkey brain fooled by bright colors anyway?

    To make this interesting, I’m counting a team’s “Home” and “Away” kits separately, just because sometimes a team’s alternate uniform may be more or less edible than its home uniform.

    So, could sport success have anything to do with how much their uniform resembles a tasty candy or fruit? …Uh, yeah, sure! Why not?

    10. South Korea (Home)

    Achieving the number 10 spot is certainly admirable, though its lower spot on the list does certainly introduce some nuance to the discussion of how edible it is.

    Firstly, I must state that I’m a sucker for a red-and-pink color combo. This has little to do, really, with how edible I find these colors, but in this case it does elevate what appears to be a very simple, shirt-of-all-shirts design.

    My brain is definitely aware that that is a shirt, and I therefore cannot eat it. Red shirts in this style are a dime-a-dozen at FIFA, too. However, that shock of pink introduces a candy element, making me think of Elementary School Valentine’s Day parties, with classmates I’ve never talked to dropping heart-shaped cherry lollipops into my hand-decorated paper bag on my desk. So, it makes the list. Excellent work, South Korea.

    9. Jamaica (Home)

    Jamaica is the first of what will be several teams that will achieve edibility in a very similar way – namely, evoking a sort of tropical banana or pineapple candy vibe with a combination of yellow and green.

    The kit’s fun colors is an intentional nod to the country’s most well-known musical export, Reggae, but to me the straight green lines give it a pop art look that wouldn’t look out of place on the packaging of perhaps a Laffy Taffy.

    However, what pushes this iteration of the yellow-and-green kit lowest is the black accents – though they certainly give the kit a sophisticated and neat look, it takes away from the impression that I could eat this shirt and it would taste like something other than cloth. So, better luck next time, Jamaica.

    8. Italy (Away)

    In sorting through the list of kits for this post, I discovered that a lot of teams have extremely similar design ambitions for their kits. Almost always the kits reference the country’s national colors or flag in some way. This is fine and makes total sense, except that SO many flags are some combination of red, white, blue, or maybe green, which means everyone’s picking from the same color bank.

    This is why there are so many boring blue or red (or blue and red) polo kits, a trap that Italy fell into for its home design. However, for its away design, Italy got a little creative, and in doing so, made something truly edible.

    Meant to evoke marble columns, the shirt certainly could bring to mind a hard, inedible piece of rock. But it’s not at all a stretch to imagine instead that the blue is a bit of blueberry and the white is some sort of ice cream, or maybe pastry, or something else sweet and cold. So much more fun than your home kit, and also much more edible.

    7. Portugal (Away)

    I will be the first to admit – sometimes it’s difficult to tell the difference between a fun design I enjoy and a truly edible one. Perhaps this is true of Portugal, whose away jersey is a truly whimsical pattern of red and teal splotches against a white background.

    Much like Italy, Portugal’s home jersey is far more conventional, a red polo with green accents (absolutely inedible). But this version uses a similar color scheme and yet evokes something that really makes the monkey brain go, “Hm, I think that might taste delicious.”

    To me, this evokes confetti cake – sprinkles on vanilla frosting, perhaps. Sure, teal and red aren’t common colors for sprinkles to be, but if you squint, it doesn’t matter.

    6. Colombia (Away)

    In partnership with Adidas, Colombia’s away kit has colors meant to evoke the Cano Cristales River, otherwise known as the “river of five colors.” This landmark is so named for the way its waters appear to shift in color throughout the year due to the changing life stages of the aquatic plants and animals that live there. It’s a really eye-catching and unique design that sets Colombia apart from the army of conventional peers with their solid-colored shirts.

    But is it edible? Sure, the dark blue, purple, and pink swirls don’t necessarily evoke any kind of food I’m familiar with. I’ve never seen a candy, dessert, or fruit that looks quite like this kit does. Regardless, I feel like this kit would have a really nice berry flavor to it. Perhaps it’s the drizzle shape of the pinks that makes me think this must be some sort of melted sugar situation.

    This is an abstract exercise anyway, get off my back.

    5. U.S.A. (Home)

    Unlike ESPN in their ranking of the best kits (not accounting for edibility), I am not offering any special consideration for my home country and the one I’m rooting for. Yes, I love them, and I want them to win the actual soccer games, but if their kits were inedible I would offer them no further consideration than any other inedible kit, thank you very much.

    It was by sheer tastiness alone that the U.S. women’s kit made this list. Similar to Italy’s away kit, the U.S. kit evokes vanilla ice cream with a nice blueberry sauce. Unlike Italy, though, the kit’s reference to abstract art of the 1940s through paint splotches also evokes the roundness of berries themselves. No squinting required here – this shirt looks like a bunch of blueberries.

    The U.S. Women may be going for a three-peat this year, and if the edibility of their kits has anything to do with it, they’ve set themselves up for success.

    4. Netherlands (Home)

    I’ve mentioned before that there are certain colors that appear far more commonly in FIFA kits than others. They’re your expected reds, whites, and blues. Second up is the yellows and greens. But occasionally, there are countries that reach for more unconventional colors, and sometimes those countries make something truly edible.

    While their flag is not orange, the Dutch nonetheless align themselves with the color because their royal family is made up of descendants of the House of Orange. While orange can be hit or miss when it comes to making something look edible, the shade the Dutch have selected this year is absolutely dead-on cantaloupe orange, the absolute best kind of orange if you love cantaloupe. If you’re a cantaloupe hater, though, you can also see the muted orange color as a sort of creamsicle or orange soda float. Yum.

    3. TIE: South Africa (Home) and Australia (Home)

    Yes, I have chosen to put South Africa and Australia together. You must forgive me, but I think my reasoning for putting these two together will be more than obvious when you look at them next to each other – they are literally the same uniform.

    Last I checked, Australia and South Africa are two distinctly different countries with different histories, culture, and geographic location. According to Google, they are 6,467 miles apart from each other by plane (no doubt much further by foot). Yet, both teams appear to have taken the exact same approach to their home kits, an approach that actually started this whole dumb joke of mine in the first place.

    Both teams feature a yellow kit, but it’s not just any yellow. It’s a slightly gold yellow, just a hint of orange, otherwise known as the tastiest yellow. This is not banana yellow, this is pineapple yellow. This is ripe mango yellow. This is a yellow that says “this fruit is ready to go.” Plus, the green accents push even further into fruit territory.

    But perhaps what sets these two uniforms apart from other yellow kits is the subtle wavy patterns on both. What can I say, it just takes these shirts away from shirt territory and into “I could snack on this” territory.

    2. Switzerland (Home)

    I have already complained in this post about the absolute deluge of regular red shirts amongst the FIFA World Cup kits. Over a third (I counted) of the teams have at least one kit design that is literally just a solid red shirt and come on guys. I know that this is because a lot of countries use red in their flags and national symbolism, but can we get a little creativity here? At least make the red the accent (unless you’re then making a blue shirt, which is also extremely common).

    But one red shirt, in my mind, stands out amongst the crowd, and that red shirt belongs to Switzerland. Sure, it’s not original, not by a long shot, but there is something about this kit that pushes it out of mediocrity and into edible distinction. Look closely and you’ll note a light gradient dip to darker red at the bottom of this kit.

    The design is meant to mimic the mountains the Swiss are so famous for, but to me it more greatly resembles the way a Snocone looks when you’ve just poured all the cherry syrup onto the top (except upside-down, I guess). Plus, the slight purpley hue to the red makes it appear to my dumb little brain less like a jersey and more like something sweet and fruity.

    1. Japan (Away)

    And finally, the most accomplished of all of the FIFA Women’s World Cup kits, if you measure accomplishment by how much the kit looks like a dessert, we come to Japan’s away kits. Japan is one of the many countries that fell into the blue shirt trap for their home kits, a slightly less common but still just as boring trap as the red shirt one, but for their away kits they opted for something a lot more unique (and delicious).

    The pastel pink and purple hues of this kit are meant to evoke the colors of the clouds surrounding Mt. Fuji, Japan’s highest peak. But to me, the frothy colors of this kit bring to mind any number of beautiful sweets. Perhaps ice cream or fluffy cotton candy comes to mind. Or, maybe appropriately for the country wearing these jerseys, some soft strawberry mochi or a pastry from the Japanese bakery in Cincinnati my friend Marie took me to a few weeks back.

    I may be 24 years old, but there is still a little child in me who sees something pink and purple and pretty and is conditioned to think – “Well, I can obviously eat that. Give it to me!” It is that impulse that Japan’s kit inspires in me, and one I hope inspires many across the world as these talented athletes battle it out on the field.

    To me, one of the most core of human instincts is the instinct to see something brightly colored and nice and think – “I could eat that.” While in the end, it all comes down to who scores the most points (I think), during a time of friendly competition between global rivals, it’s worthwhile to reflect upon what brings us together.

  • Yes, Barbie is as good as you’ve heard.

    Yes, Barbie is as good as you’ve heard.

    I had given myself permission not to worry too much about how I was going to see Barbie. One of my good friends had informed me she had plans to organize a group outing to the theater after a Barbie-themed party, and from the loose way I was following the advertising around the movie, I had convinced myself this party was being held on the release weekend of the movie. Organized. No problem

    Then, about a week ago, I looked at the date of the party, and the release date of Barbie, and I thought “Huh, that’s a week apart.”

    Well, no mind. I’m generally not too worried about being ahead of the trends, or whatever. If I had to wait a little to see the movie, that would be fine.

    So anyway, that’s the mindset I had when it just so happened this past week that I was accompanying a group of high school journalists to a local drive-in movie. I was a teaching assistant for a two-week journalism camp, the second week requiring students to group up and produce a multimedia story – written and video. The two groups I was accompanying were capturing a sweet little story, a profile on a drive-in movie theater that had been in operation since 1955, changing hands from local family to local family.

    We were going on a Tuesday night, for their free “Retro Tuesday” showing of Shrek. Mostly families playing frisbee were there, and my student groups were surprisingly brave and didn’t need me to hold their hands as they gathered interviews. So, I had some downtime at the plastic picnic tables set up outside the snack shack in the center of the field. I looked up the theater’s schedule and realized they were showing Barbie that Thursday. For $8.

    My mind started wheeling. I had a little pink dress I had found at an antique store with a ruffly collar. I drove a red Mustang Convertible. Camp was ending on Thursday afternoon. I could make this work.

    That’s how me and my partner ended up rolling up to the drive-in theater that Thursday, bedecked in our Barbie best. Despite gray clouds rolling in, the theater assured us on their Facebook that they’d be showing the movie rain or shine, a fact which kind of shocked me, but turned out to be absolutely true. Even as lightning crashed and rain poured down on us (thankfully, I had the good sense to put the top back up on my convertible before the deluge), we got to see Greta Gerwig’s newest entry into her great Feminine Cinematic Canon.

    This is a huge movie, and it just came out, so I’ll begin my review spoiler-free, and get down in to the nitty-gritty after a spoiler tag. If you want just a review without any information on the plot, read up to my spoiler tag and then go be on your merry way. But if you just want to know my overall recommendation – I highly urge going to see this one. Barbie lived up to the hype, and that is a huge compliment, because there was a lot of hype.

    I think the thing this movie got the most right, the secret to its success, is its tone. This is a very funny movie, from beginning to end. It’s especially funny if you, like me, are a bit of a Barbie buff. There’s a ton of references, big and small, to Barbie history and the actual dolls themselves. Perhaps some of this humor would be lost if you aren’t familiar, but I still think a lot of the jokes will land.

    The second thing I think this movie got right, less important but probably what will keep it around in the public, is the way it looks. This was already a major part of what people were talking about, but suffice it to say that people who love Barbie are going to love all of the outfits and the sets. I hope beyond hope that this is kicking off a big bright outfit renaissance, and all of my silly little doll outfits I like to wear are going to suddenly be in-style (and also, it’s going to be much easier to buy new pieces for my silly little doll wardrobe).

    But the last thing this movie absolutely needed to stick the landing with and did, was its heart. As silly and big and bright as this movie is, it also had me crying and feeling and thinking. There were moments throughout of clumsy social commentary, but those moments are small compared to the overall interesting ideas and themes this movie brings up. It took on a big task, adapting such a complicated media figure for the screen, and I think it does it with genuine heart and honesty.

    And with that, I end my spoiler-free commentary. Viewers beware, beyond here lies spoilers, so if you’d like to see this movie without knowing a thing about it, stop now.

    Full Thoughts (Spoilers Ahead)

    My relationship to Barbie is not exactly straightforward.

    My mom likes to tell this story. It’s the day of my birth, and the doctors hand me to her for the very first time. Of course, I don’t remember this at all, but my mom swears that one of the very first thing she tells me as she’s holding me is how excited she is to play Barbie with me.

    My mom is a lifelong Barbie fan. She had them as a kid, and she still has them on the day I’m born, because she wants me to be a lifelong Barbie fan, too. She has Superstar Barbie, with her bent arms and her blue eyeshadow and her fluffy blonde hair and her slinky pink dress. That’s the one she always remembers first, when we talk about Barbie.

    I get Barbies of my own as I grow up. I remember the Nutcracker Barbie, especially the way she has a clip-on tiara. I enjoy re-enacting the events of the Barbie in the Nutcracker movie with the one nutcracker from our Christmas decorations my mom lets me play with, the one whose top hat has already broken off, making him look bald. (I still eye the red nutcracker mom keeps on the mantle, who looks far closer to the one in the movie.)

    I also love the Barbie media I consume. I watch Barbie movies and check out Barbie computer games from our local library every week. But it doesn’t take long for me to sort of lose interest in the dolls.

    I am just not a fashion doll kid. I am a horse kid, absolutely. I have a tub of horse toys that I name and lovingly affix backstories to. Then, I’m a Littlest Pet Shop kid, and I build a village of mixed playsets and dollhouses down the center of my childhood bedroom for my bobblehead animals to live in. But Superstar Barbie and Nutcracker Barbie lie naked in another tub in the corner of my closet, and I just don’t reach for them.

    It’s only in recent years that I have admitted that I actually do like fashion dolls. I think if you had asked me as a kid, I would have said something about not caring about fashion. Back then, I cared very much about seeming smart and fashion just didn’t seem like a smart thing for me to care about. But now I’m older and I like wearing fun outfits that make me happy, and I also like buying dolls with fun outfits and putting them up on a shelf. But Barbie still isn’t usually the doll I reach for – I have Monster High and Rainbow High and even two Bratz, but no Barbie.

    So perhaps it’s stolen valor or something to say that I was excited to see the Barbie movie, despite growing up a little Barbie-hater.

    I don’t exactly envy Greta Gerwig’s task with this one. As I dance around in the post I linked above about Barbie’s affect on femininity, it is no simple undertaking to pass judgment on her. Yes, she absolutely was a revolutionary toy for the girls of the 60s. But she was also a really comfortable toy for the girls of the 80s and 90s, with her feminine fashion and her fantasy model proportions. She is a product of a multi-million-dollar company. She is a beloved toy of generations of girls and women.

    So it’s just not possible to call her a saint or a demon. It’s true to say she changed the world for the better, and also for the worse. It’s the kind of nuance that doesn’t really translate well to a Buzzfeed article or, really, for a marketable movie script.

    But I trusted Greta Gerwig, and my trust paid off. Barbie is a movie that takes on the strange dichotomous nature of its central figure with heart and genuine curiosity. It pokes fun at the idea that a doll could solve the patriarchy – and the movie says in no uncertain terms that it can’t – but also simultaneously pokes fun at the very idea that we might expect a doll to do something like that at all. Barbie is everything, but she is also naïve and flawed, just as the idea of her might seem a bit naïve and flawed.

    Margot Robbie is an excellent choice for this role. She is, as the script even openly jokes about, so beautiful it’s almost difficult to accept that she might be scared of the possibility of ugliness. But she is also a great comedian, with some excellent scenes of physical comedy as she moves like a doll would. She is so good that I would actually list the movie’s expansion into more of an ensemble cast in the third act as one of its weaknesses. It makes sense for her growth as a character for her to take a slight backseat, but it was still a little sad when the focus shifted away from her a bit.

    Ryan Gosling is also very, very good, but that was to be expected after the absolute balls-to-the-wall insanity he has chosen to approach marketing his role in this movie with. This man is Ken, I believe it wholeheartedly. I’m actually a little worried about him. Has anyone checked on him? Is he okay?

    It wasn’t exactly a surprise to see him do his heel-turn, but I do like the humor he brought to the role of villain. The movie’s moments of awkward social commentary are less awkward knowing that it’s all coming from the flawed mind of a literal doll whose only prior exposure to gender dynamics was via the girl power world of Barbieland. His weird patriarchy is legitimately very funny to see, and the entire music number that spells his downfall was a highlight of the movie.

    But I’ll circle back to that commentary, because I will list it as probably the movie’s biggest weakness. I’m hesitant to spend too much time on it, because I know as I speak a thousand of the most slimy, disgusting fascists are typing at their Apple iMacs right now about how this is woke social justice warrior propaganda. I don’t disagree with the commentary this movie makes – it is weird and hard to be a woman in 2023. But I also think the movie didn’t need to come right out and say it in the way it does – there’s a subtler script somewhere in there where the pressures felt by America Ferrera’s character are made frank by showing us rather than having her lecture the brainwashed Barbies about it.

    But, on the other hand, maybe I sometimes place a little too much stock in the power of subtlety. Perhaps Greta Gerwig needed to bash some viewers over the head with her point. Thus, I can’t be too critical.

    Speaking of America Ferrera, though, I will also praise her character. I really liked the perspective of an older woman’s relationship with Barbie rather than a child’s – it was obviously quite resonant to me, the annoying anti-Barbie kid of a Barbie-loving mom myself. I liked her journey to the point where I wished it was made a bit more explicit at the end. Gerwig set up something really cool by making the plot revolve around the way Barbie and the woman playing with her have sort of become one and the same.

    Finally, it was Barbie’s journey that really sold this movie for me. The ways she is so odd and alien felt resonant and the movie’s smart decision in the end not to have her stay in Barbieland and chase her strange humanness was exactly where the movie needed to go. I also really, really appreciate how firmly shut down the possibility of Barbie and Ken getting together was – I didn’t actually expect the movie to do that.

    This is a movie that I’m glad I’m going to get to see again in a few weeks, because there’s many parts of it I still want to chew on. But I think that’s a mark of a really good movie – I think I love it, but I think I’m only going to love it more once I really start to understand it.