PicoBlog

I am fascinated by the disconcertingly sizable contingent of what passes for the Alt-Right intelligentsia who are obsessed with the idea that while Taylor Swift might seem deliriously happy being rich and famous and wildly successful and all she’ll die depressed, bitter and alone if she doesn’t have a child IMMEDIATELY. 

These deluded fools genuinely seem to think that unless you’ve spent literal days of your life cleaning up the feces of a human being that you helped create then you will never know true or lasting happiness, that your life always be empty and vacant and full of regrets. 

I am here to tell you that while being a parent is great in many respects the idea that it is the only path to true contentment is insane. It takes a special kind of narcissist for a mother or father to look at childless young people living their best lives and rocking their best bodies and not being weighed down, exhausted and broke from the infinite responsibilities of parenthood and think, “They must want what I have or they are lying to themselves.” 

Because the world is a ridiculous place filled with ridiculous people there are folks who will see Taylor Swift’s new concert film Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour as a historic act of overcompensating from a women pathetically trying to make up for a life shamefully and unforgivably devoid of marriage and/or child-bearing by celebrating a life and career overflowing with achievements and successes. 

They’ll look at the ear to ear smile that Swift sports throughout the film, and the palpable sense of pride  she exudes and deride her as a phony who doesn’t understand that real purpose can only be attained by giving birth to another human being, then devoting your life to caring for it no matter how difficult or expensive or even impossible-seeming that task might be. 

I’m here to tell these haters that they are in fact the deluded ones and that the joy that Swift exudes here is real and earned and richly merited, the product of talent and hard work and savvy calculation. 

Incidentally there was only one other person at the Sunday night screenings that I attended. Now you could argue that that’s because it was the 142nd screening of the day but I see it as more evidence that if you go woke, you go broke. Maybe if Swift had worn a certain red hat onstage and had Kimberly Guilfoyle deliver a passionate half hour speech about the importance of banning abortion she’d have some fans.

The Eras Tour is a nearly three hour long victory lap for a performer who has accomplished roughly as much in her thirty-three years as Jesus Christ did. Swift has possibly accomplished more than the Christian savior because her back catalog contains a number of straight up bangers whereas all of Jesus’ songs are preachy and shit and all about how you should literally worship him as a God. I don’t want to be critical but He has quite the God Complex.

Speaking of people who are worshiped like Gods, The Eras Tour celebrates not a single album or albums but rather Swift’s entire career. It commemorates nearly seventeen years of albums dating all the way back to her self-titled 2006 debut. 

Can you have eras in a career that relatively short? When I think of eras I think of Picasso’s phases or Madonna or David Bowie or Bob Dylan’s continual reinvention but Swift is not an ordinary thirty three year old. 

That’s partially because Swift began performing and became super-famous at a very young age, not unlike Justin Timberlake and Michael Jackson, both of whom also put out concert movies analogous to The Eras Tour, at least one of which was posthumous.  

We feel like we know Swift the same way that we feel like we know Timberlake and knew Jackson because they have been entertaining us since they were children and we watched them grow up. 

That kind of pressure makes some performers all-time greats and destroys others. Sometimes it does both, as in Michael Jackson’s case. 

The Eras Tours is all about exploring the various eras of Swift’s career but it does not unfold in chronological order. It does not chart Swift’s evolution from a freshly scrubbed country teenybopper idol who wrote and recorded her blockbuster debut album while she was still in high school to a pop star and then a critic’s darling. 

Instead The Eras Tour unfolds in ten different acts, each with a distinct color scheme. There is nothing in the way of intermissions. Instead Swift performs non-stop for over three hours at the shows that were filmed for The Era Tours.

Swift has had plenty of time to get used to being one of the most successful musicians in the world. The world of fame and fortune is not new to hear yet throughout The Eras Tour she seems overwhelmed and astonished to be in the position that she’s in. She still can’t seem to believe that her fairy tale came true and that she’s accomplished everything she ever dreamed of and much more. 

In another context that might come off as smarmy or disingenuous but with Swift it seems sincere. Throughout the movie we see shots of women (it’s always women) absolutely ecstatic to be there, lost in an almost religious trance they’re so transcendently happy. These women include Swift herself. 

Swift writes songs so catchy that I didn’t recognize a lot of them because I have never owned a Taylor Swift album and don’t listen to the radio or leave my home, ever, really, but by the third verse I was happily singing along in an empty movie theater like a real idiot. 

Like Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids, The Era Tours illustrates the strength and depth of a catalog Swift and Timberlake began building when they were just freakishly talented teen prodigies who wrote their own songs despite being extremely attractive. 

Swift spends the entirety of The Eras Tour gallivanting about a giant stage in a giant venue that glitters like a sea of diamonds around her. She is seldom within shouting distance of her band because her most important relationship, her most powerful and lasting bond, is not with the musicians that she collaborates with but rather with fans who worship and revere her but also identify with her. 

This bond is particularly potent and personal because Swift’s work is so famously autobiographical and concerned with a notoriously messy private/romantic life whose highs and lows have played out in screaming tabloid headlines. 

The downside to being both famous and infamous for your choice of romantic partner is that I spent way too much time here wondering which songs were written about John Mayer. 

That dude sucks.

That’s what The Eras Tour and its timeless motion picture chronicle is all about: Taylor reclaiming her story and her narrative for herself rather than let powerful men control her or it for their own purposes. 

As is perhaps apparent by this point I am a Taylor Swift fan but not to the point that I’ve ever owned any of her albums. That’s at least partially because I don’t buy anybody’s new albums these days because I am old father whose life revolves around his family and a career that ultimately has little to do with Taylor Swift. 

But I gained a whole new appreciation of her and her extraordinary gifts here. I spent two hours and forty-eight minutes watching Swift perform hit after hit in front of a crowd as enraptured as it is massive and never got bored. 

You don’t have to spray your audiences with off-brand soda or pretend to be wicked clowns to form a powerful, even transcendent relationship with your hardcore fans. You don’t even need to record food or TV-themed parodies to pop songs like Swift’s “You Belong With Me” or perform three hour shows rich in improvisation to attract and make people happy. 

This is going to sound crazy but sometimes it’s possible to form that kind of deep connection by putting out albums and songs that really connect with people, that speaks to who they are and how they see the world. 

Besides, I am a Phish fan so three hour long shows are nothing new to me. 

I would love to see Taylor Swift perform live, preferably while on a large amount of drugs, but that’s never going to happen. The Eras Tour is probably the closest you or I will come to experiencing the magic live and this riveting document of a pop star at her peak is an eminently acceptable substitute for the real thing. 

Four Stars Out of Five 

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