Speak Now

How the documentary 'Miss Americana' by Taylor Swift has inspired me to speak my truth.

Fellow writers, 

 

A few months ago, I watched a documentary called ‘Miss Americana’ that follows American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and her life over the course of several years of her career. She let us see into her most intimate life and show us how she has grown to be a successful singer who has learnt to believe in her music and in what she values. This documentary made me admire Taylor’s journey and made me wonder what I love and what I feel is important to me.  

 

Taylor Swift starts this documentary talking about her beginnings with her music career when she was 16 years old and shows us a young woman that feels insecure about her music, and feels happy and valued when she receives external approval on it. She explains to us that her entire belief system was built around being a good girl, the girl who was always nice and liked by everybody, who would do not make people feel uncomfortable and who would not speak her mind and opinions. Consequently, when Taylor was strongly criticised because she had not written all her songs by herself in her second album called Fearless, she decided to write all her songs alone for her next album, Speak now. When her dating life became an international past time and she was s**t-shamed for dating multiple men, she decided to not date for a year. She wanted to keep being liked by everybody, therefore she constantly modified her behaviour to show that she deserved to be where she was.

 

At this point, I could not move my eyes away from the documentary, I needed to know more. The acceptance that for women if you are not likeable (especially by men) we lose our worth in society has affected me on how I have behaved in my daily life. For example, during all my life, I have struggled to say no to people, as I felt they would not like me and I feared that. I have spent too many Saturday nights babysitting until 1 am because I was not able to say no. I remember, too, when I was around 10 years old my grandma telling ‘smile child, you look so serious’ and how that made me feel forced to do something I did not want to do.

 

The documentary continues to show us how she reached a point in her life where she had to change this way of thinking for her own good. Taylor decided to rethink her life completely after an event in which she was accused of having approved the lyrics of the Kanye West’ song ‘famous’ where he used the b-word to refer to her in 2016. She denied this accusation and said that she never approved it because she was unaware of the lyrics. Then, the fans of West and his wife Kim Kardashian led an online campaign to ‘cancel’ Swift which was trending topic. 

 

She says that this was a moment of truth, and that she had to deconstruct her entire belief system for her own sanity. Taylor opens up to the viewers about how she had to learn to be happy without anyone else’s input and how empowering that was for her. The result was an album called reputation in 2017 where she expressed her feelings of injustice and spoke her truth. 

 

For me, this quote describes the essence of her growth: ‘I needed to get to a point where I was ready, able and willing to call out bullshit rather than just smiling my way through it’. These words felt like a genuine truth expressed out loud after a long time being hidden from me. Her own experience fuelled me with possibility, hope, and confirmation that is all right to speak out my opinions. 

 

Nevertheless, my amazement and inspiration exploded when in the last part of the documentary Taylor decides to publicly voice her political opinions in 2018. She broke a years-long policy of keeping her politics for herself, in which she thought she was supposed to not push her political beliefs onto audiences or fans. Taylor’s political intentions were met with reluctance by her father at the beginning, actions of this kind could mean the end of her career and put her in danger. However, she defended that she needed to advocate for what feels right to her.

 

In the fall of 2018, she spoke out on the midterm election in her home state of Tennessee against the republican Marsha Blackburn, who was running for Senate, on account of her being a flagrant enemy of feminism and gay rights. In addition, she called for her fans to sign a petition in support of the Equality Act- legislation designed to protect LGBTQ+ Americans from discriminations on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. She was able to mobilize roughly half million signatures. 

 

The forced silence on girls and women’s opinions that the good girl stereotype imposes has affected me, Taylor Swift, and many other women. This not only intervenes in our ability to take care of ourselves in front of possible aggressions from the outside but in our capacity to oppose unfair practices that happen in our society. Therefore, once Taylor starts to stand up for herself and her music she realizes, as well, that this means to defend what she thinks is right and speak out about it.

 

I felt Taylor’s journey as my own. After watching this documentary, I wanted to create and take action towards my aspirations. I understood Taylor, there is a moment than as a person you need to defend out loud the world that you want to live in if not you are failing to yourself. 

 

Thus, I think what is important to me is to be able to speak now about what I love and not to be afraid. I love being able to express myself without being constricted to my gender standards, I love being surrounded with people that values human lives as a priority and I love creating relationships based in love and respect. These convictions are there and they shape me in the person I am today. As Taylor Swift beautifully says in her song daylight ‘you are what you love’.