Ghosts in Marble

One of my least favourite things about politics is that, come election time, they all focus on tearing down their opponents. Instead of telling me what they plan to do to make my life better, they focus on telling me what the other guy isn’t going to do. The negativity, the backbiting, the cattiness - I despise it.

And now, it’s come around in the entertainment industry, targeted at Taylor Swift. I know it’s always been there in some capacity, but the volume of it now is insane.

Look, I’m not Taylor Swift’s biggest fan. A few of her songs have stood out to me, but I don’t own any of her albums in full, and I don’t seek out anything about her. So when I have seen, over the last three days, three different attacks on her, her music, her popularity, whatever - I can only imagine how much more is actually out there.

And here’s the thing - these attacks are in the form of 1. another artist essentially calling Swift’s music shallow, with the implication that their own music is for cerebral, intellectual people, 2. an artist complaining that by putting on such large shows, Swift is preventing people from coming to their own show (which is on the same day) and 3. some apparent celebrity or other (ive never heard their name before and can’t recall it now) saying that Swift should step back and let other artists have a chance at an award/number 1 song/what have you. So firstly, all these things clearly smack of jealousy, and I think we can all recognize that.

But the schoolyard pettiness, the participation-trophy entitlement, is what is really bothering me about this.

Taylor Swift should not have to make herself smaller in service of these greedy, jealous, grasping people, or anyone else.

One thing I have observed, mostly from osmosis because again, I don’t seek out information about her, is that Taylor Swift treats her career like that’s what it is. It’s a job. It’s her work. It’s work she’s passionate about, and work she loves, but it’s work. She’s (at least mostly) not in it for the fame and the fortune. She’s in it because she loves music and wants to share it, and she’s gained the fame and fortune because so many people connect with her and her music. That takes passion, and talent, but also dedication, and work.

Taylor Swift will still be making music, and will still be famous decades down the road, because this is her job, and she treats it like one. And it’s a job she is succeeding at, and she is using her privilege to make other peoples lives better without calling attention to it. Almost any other celebrity would have pointed out or announced that they made a donation to a food bank at a stop along their tour. Instead, the only headline about it I saw was from the organization who received the donation.

So I say again: Taylor Swift should not have to make herself smaller to satisfy other people. Other people should instead see her as inspiration, or even a challenge, and step the fuck up instead of trying to tear her down.

I thought we had settled this discussion over a decade ago, when some asshat interrupted her acceptance speech for an award he, personally, thought someone else deserved. Clearly history does repeat.

Jack let Jasmine go with the fairies for the good of the world. This is made more palatable because she wanted to go, but it’s still a sacrifice that makes Jasmine’s mother lash out at him and causes Gwen, Tosh, and Owen to give him the cold shoulder. I think it’s debatable whether or not he would have let the fairies have her even if she hadn’t wanted to go - maybe the issue would have dragged on a bit longer, but barring any other solutions presenting themselves (and the episode makes it clear this is unlikely), I think he would have given her up.

He sacrificed the original 456 victims as well. He knew that he was handing a bunch of scared little kids to an alien, and he didn’t know what was going to happen to them; they could have been dinner for all he knew. This was also not his call to make, but he went along with it because it was made clear that it was 12 kids or the world. He follows orders and doesn’t even try to find another solution.

He sacrifices Steven, his own grandson, to stop the 456, because it’s down to the wire and this is the only solution available. They don’t have time to come up with anything else. And what else is he going to do? Go hunt down a less conveniently available child and devastate someone else’s family just to keep his own intact? Most people would have; we see all the politicians specifically discuss that none of their families will lose children to the 456.