#queertime

letsbeperfectlyqueerpodcast

Ever feel like you’re doing life out of order? Like you’re somehow “behind,” even though you’re just figuring things out your own way?The might just be queer time.

It doesn’t follow the usual timeline of milestones—and that’s kind of the point. Whether you came out later, transitioned more than once, or just never fit into the boxes, that’s totally okay! You can hear more about this in our recent episode.

letsbeperfectlyqueerpodcast

Ever feel like you’re doing life out of order? Like you’re somehow “behind,” even though you’re just figuring things out your own way?The might just be queer time.

It doesn’t follow the usual timeline of milestones—and that’s kind of the point. Whether you came out later, transitioned more than once, or just never fit into the boxes, that’s totally okay! You can hear more about this in our recent episode.

Resisting hetero-temporality

In "Lavender Haze" on Midnights, Swift talks about the feelings you experience when you're falling in love and wanting to stay in that feeling as long as possible. It's a vibe of honeymoon phases and is inspired by a line from Mad Men to describe the desire to focus on love rather than be influenced by others. She describes this music video as the one that "helped [her] conceptualize the world and mood of Midnights, like a sultry sleepless 70's fever dream" (@taylorswift on instagram, January 27, 2023).

In Halberstam's In a Queer Time & Place (2005), they explore the concept of queer time and discuss how it emerged in the 1980s after the AIDS crisis experienced by the gay community, namely gay men. This resulted in members of the LGBTQ community to face death very early on in rapidly spreading ways. The community at large was facing the loss of their futures, or compressed life, because there was a very likely chance they could die from the disease. In these ways, queer time emphasizes the present and encourages folks to live freely and as hard as they can because the "threat of no future hovers overhead like a storm cloud" (p. 2). In this need to live right now, because there might not be a future to do so, comes the "potentiality of a life unscripted by the conventions of family, inheritance, and child rearing" (p. 2). Hetero-temporality is the way that life progress and milestones are determined or valued in a particular order because that's the traditional, heterosexual way of aging. There's this idea that you're supposed to move through life in this particular way-

childhood

adolescence

teenager, where you may be an angsty, rebellious pain in the ass

graduate college and get a job

find a partner

marriage

raise kids of your own

receive inheritence from your parents

die and give your children their inheritance

This is the "Bejeweled" music video with so many Easter Eggs! I will highlight major ones that connect to this queer time focused project and to her rerecording albums or Eras Tour. This is in effort to build evidence and highlight moments where Easter Eggs in Midnights bring us back to, or tease us for future, albums of Taylor's past (present and future), specifically Speak Now (Taylor's Version) which as we now know was the next rerecorded album to be released. This video also references feelings, experiences, or criticisms she's had thrown at her in the media through Easter Eggs of her album 1989.

Swift released this music video (mv) on October 25th, 2022. This just ~happened~ (not) to be the 12th anniversary of her Speak Now, her 3rd studio album and only album that is entirely self-written.

One of her songs from Speak Now, "Enchanted", can be heard in the background of the opening scene. The evil stepmother, played by Laura Dern, says "speak not tired, tacky wench, clean"

Relationships & marriage are a frequent topic in Midnights as the media has always been hypercritical of Taylor's boyfriends (re: "Blank Space" in 1989). In this mv, the stepmother implies that a proposal is all women should aspire for along with a comment about the prince "tiring of [Swift] quickly". This is a moment that Swift touches on frequently, including in her song "Shake it Off" from 1989 as the media has always made comments about Swift's boyfriends and implied that she can't hold onto one.

The elevator has 13 floors (Swift's favorite number) and it opens on floor 3, colored purple, the same shade as Speak Now and it was her 3rd album. Outside this frame below, the 13th floor, colored purple, can be seen after the 12th floor, colored midnight blue. Implying the 13th album will be Speak Now (Taylor's Version).

Taylor walks into a room with floating jewels and puts on a necklace and bracelet with colors coordinating to her albums. The lyric "I can reclaim the land" plays right after she dons each of her albums, which she's in the process of reclaiming via rerecordings.

Taylor re-enters the elevator and we see it opens up on a bright blue floor color. She walks in to greet Dita Von Teese, both Dita and Taylor are styled in hair and makeup that is reminiscent of Taylor's 1989 era and specifically her song "Wildest Dreams" mv. An Easter Egg implying 1989 will release after Speak Now.

Towards the end of the mv, Swift has claimed her right to the castle and walks onto a balcony wearing and styled in outfit and hair that remind us of "Love Story" from Fearless and we can hear a trumpet heavy version of "Long Live" from Speak Now where in it she references "long live the walls we crashed through/how the kingdom lights shined just for me and you" as a lament to her losing her future in music, her career, and her voice (more on that in other posts). As the camera zooms out to see the entire castle, we see three dragons landing on towers and flying around it. A reference to "Long Live" lyrics "I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you".

“I remember that life in that room seemed to be occurring beneath the sea. Time flowed past indifferently above us; hours and days had no meaning. In the beginning, our life together held a joy and amazement which was newborn every day. Beneath the joy of course, was anguish and beneath the amazements was fear; but they did not work themselves to the beginning until our high beginning was aloes on our tongue.” Giovanni’s Room pg 75

As I write this, I have found myself in a cavern of my own creation. One where my body stretches beyond its capacity while being consumed by a black hole. This black hole  offers itself to me as a transition point that leads to two roads that will ultimately define my faith. Giovanni’s room is a cavern, a non space where David can actualize his Queer desires without the pressures of the haunting heterosexual reality that lies beyond its walls. However, David’s resistance to any harmony that could come from this room becomes a parasite that eventually eats away at its walls. Queer time distorts one’s heteronormative desires and deconstructs one’s quest so thrive in an oppressive capitalistic society. It is a sacred space to operate in and runs the risk of being demolished by those who are not yet ready to move through it. David’s inability to commit to this Queer time is what leads to his own demise as well as Giovanni’s.