LOS ANGELES — Swarms of Swifties descended on the AMC Grove 14 for the premiere of “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” concert film last week, an event so insanely anticipated that those of us lucky enough to be on the invite list were informed of its location mere hours before showtime.
Security was tight, with the swanky outdoor mall transformed into a maze of portable hedges over which helicopters hovered — loud enough to drown out the Swift songs playing on the sound system.
But not the screams of the Swifties as they encountered each other, learned of their idol’s arrival via TikTok or saw her posing on the red carpet that snaked past Coach and Barnes and Noble.
Seeing the girls with hand-to-elbow wristbands, sparkly cowboy boots and matching gold fringe dresses as I entered the theater, I confess I felt something of a fraud.
I am not a Swiftie.
It could be age or excessive exposure to elementary-school talent-show renditions of “Love Story” and “You Belong with Me.” Whatever the reason, I would no more pay hundreds, never mind thousands, of dollars to see an Eras Tour concert than I would shell out for Manolos or hire sherpas to pull me up Mount Everest.
I was, however, very much looking forward to seeing Swift’s new concert movie.
Not, perhaps, as much as the woman who sobbed to cameras outside the parking structure about how she has been living for this because Swift means so much to her.
Or the hundreds of fans who lined the red-carpeted main thoroughfare of the Grove, straining for a sight of their idol.
Still, I have been known to sing along to “Mean” with my daughters on the way to soccer games or do a little “Shake It Off” twist.
Proof that you don’t have to be a Swiftie to understand why so many others are.
You don’t have to be instantly transported by her every song like so many appear to be at her sold-out concerts. To admire the many stands she has taken (including calling out Scooter Braun long before everyone else fired him) or appreciate the outsize role she plays in the culture of female and artist empowerment.
A love of fringe dresses is not required to respect her work registering voters or as an LGBTQ activist. Even those not panting for the upcoming rerelease of “1989” (which is predicted to be her biggest sales week ever) can applaud her decision to rerecord her old albums so she would finally own her work, or to hand out $55 million in bonuses to crew members, including truckers. I don’t own a friendship bracelet but I still bow before her ability to boost local economies and inspire childlike awe from the NFL.
Even at the world premiere she was putting in the work — and not just on the red carpet. As the 7 p.m. showtime pushed well past eight, folks were starting to fidget. Until Swift sashayed into the room, at least: Just to say hi, give a shout out to her dancers (some of whom were in the audience) and thank everyone for coming. In each of the AMC Grove’s 14 theaters.
This is a woman who takes her work, her success and herself seriously. And even now that is a rare and wonderful thing to behold.
At 33, she has never abandoned her young followers or voiced, as other young stars have, a desire to move past her established fan base. Her music may have matured, but she remains committed to songs about love and the struggle for identity. She has appeared in movies and TV shows, but does not aspire to be a movie or TV star. And though she is slated to make her feature writing/directing debut for Searchlight — a logical next step after helming her own music videos — it’s with the Eras Tour, a journey through her own musical history, that she has established herself as one of the most popular and powerful performers of all time.
More than anything, Taylor Swift values what she does and takes pleasure in doing it well — which has made her a beacon for everyone who wants to feel the same.
It wasn’t easy. White, blond, tall and thin, her looks have worked, as is so often the case with female artists, for and against her. Easily loved and easily dismissed, she benefited from being seen as “the girl next door,” and was simultaneously saddled with a trope traditionally reserved for white women. In 2009, when Kanye West hijacked her acceptance speech for the MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video of the Year, she found herself, at 19, in the center of an acrimonious conversation about race in the music industry, portrayed, at best, as a victim and, at worst, a symptom of a larger problem.
Over the years, Swift has been mocked for the often autobiographical nature of her songs — when not alluding to bad behavior by old beaux, she often pushed back against critics and producers. Her deft use of social media, the ultimate marketing tool of the 21st century, was seen as either canny or manipulative. (Um, it’s marketing.)
But her habit of standing up for herself was not limited to lyrics. In 2013, after a Colorado DJ groped her during a photo op, Swift, then 23, reported it and the DJ was fired. When, two years later, he sued her for defamation, Swift countersued for battery and assault and won.
Then, in 2015, she spoke out against Apple not paying writers, artists and producers during the free three-month trial of their new music service. Some saw her as a champion, others as a spoiled millionaire star. Either way Apple began paying for the music.
And in 2019, Swift’s battle against mega-producer Braun and the equity company that helped him acquire Big Machine Label, which owned much of her work, exposed problems that were discussed in the halls of Congress.
Not surprisingly, being the center of such wildly vacillating public opinion took its toll. Lana Wilson’s 2020 documentary “Miss Americana” captures the isolation of an artist who literally cannot leave her home without stirring up an anthill of fans (some of whom are more predatory than others) as she decides, against the advice of everyone in the room, that it’s time to use her voice politically.
So the screaming fans and sold-out concerts really aren’t a surprise, any more than rapturous singing-and-dancing-in-the-aisles reception the concert film received at its premiere.
In a culture increasingly bereft of role models, Swift, whose biggest scandal to date involved the overuse of her private jet, is a genuinely aspirational figure. Even the nightmare many fans faced over getting Eras tickets forced local and national politicians to begin looking into Ticketmaster’s exorbitant fees.
Like her music or hate it, Taylor Swift has raised a generation of fans to take themselves seriously and fight for what they believe in.
Mary McNamara is a culture columnist and critic for the Los Angeles Times./Tribune News Service
