Everyday I wake up shocked and offended Showgirl is so not ripped from Taylor's journal's like, how can a person feel so detached from their own alleged presumed emotions and stories they decided to tell. How did that even happen? That's Taylor's usual thing, even when I don't connect to the song or enjoy the sound of her music, I at least usually feel like their her sincere emotions and stories and point she's trying to express.
I have a theory that I’ve shared before but I think it happened due to her being surrounded by sports now. I’m not saying something as simple as “the album is bad because of travis” because it’s reductive to make a women’s work revolve around a man (swifties favorite activity), it’s more complex than that. You are who you surround yourself with and Taylor herself has publicly said she changed herself to fit in with who she’s with. It’s fairly obvious that’s been happening from the way she dresses to the friends she now holds close.
To the point of her music, she repeatedly expressed during the eras tour documentary that she needed to hide her emotions in order to be strong and be a “good leader”, which in so many words means she views emotions as a form of weakness all of the sudden. Don’t show how you feel, you need to look strong. Many people have pointed out that there a very dated and toxic mentality, but also that it’s quite similar to how athletes treat their emotions. It’s a very sport-like attitude to have. Look strong, play the game, be a leader. And because it’s such a harsh 180 turn from the girl who proudly spoke about wearing her heart on her sleeve and how that was a brave thing, it’s not a far reach to assume she learned this mentality only recently and from new people in her life. And of course this bleeds into the album she made when she was surrounded by these people and adopting this mindset. You can’t close off yourself in just one aspect of life, so her songwriting also became a victim of this closed off attitude. Don’t write a sweet song about loving your soon to be husband… write an emotionally detached song about his dick. Don’t write a mature introspective retort to another artists similar song people think is about you, insult her and say omg you’re so obsessed with me what are you, gay?
