Why You Should Watch Taylor Swift's Miss Americana (Even if You're Not a Fan)
Proof I saw Taylor in 2010
Well, I did something that I never imagined myself doing—I watched a Taylor Swift documentary. My history with Miss Swift is pretty interesting. I actually saw her perform live in 2010 at the NFL Kickoff Party in New Orleans. The Saints won the Super Bowl the year before so New Orleans hosted the party. Tickets were free so I gladly went. The real attraction was that the Dave Matthews Band was playing afterward.
My wife—in some ways—grew up with Taylor Swift. She was a Swifty for a long time so I’ve listened to my fair share of her music. I even bought her the Red CD as a gift one time. Strangely, I have somewhat of a history myself with Taylor Swift so I was interested enough to watch her new documentary that was released on Netflix with my wife. Miss Americana wasn’t just a fascinating look behind the scenes of the life of one of the world’s biggest pop stars. It was a cultural case study.
Truly Miss Americana
Just to be upfront, I actually enjoyed Miss Americana because I enjoy documentaries and I think it’s fascinating to see the lives of people who live in ways I can’t even get close to imagining. The documentary takes you behind the scenes as Taylor’s career blossoms and advances. You see her explosion into stardom. She is raw about finding her worth from the praise of people. She is honest about her struggles and the pain she’s experienced, which much of sparked from that infamous encounter with Kanye West at the VMA’s.
Then the documentary takes a sharp turn. Maybe it’s a turn that should be expected given the state of our culture. In fact, it’s fascinating listening to Taylor’s opinions about these things. With her homestate being Tennessee, Taylor is from a very conservative state. But Taylor herself is not conservative. There is a section where Taylor speaks about fighting for the abuse of women, which is something I think we all can get behind.
A New Direction
However, much of the rest of the documentary is an agenda driven promotion of LGBTQ causes. Taylor talks a lot about these causes and wanting to “be on the right side of history”. We’re taken to the set of her shooting flamboyant music videos. We see her accepting an award with several transgender people behind her. Taylor is making it clear with Miss Americana that she’s not that little girl singing country pop anymore.
I don’t expect Taylor to act like a Christian—although she claims to be one in this documentary so maybe I should. We should not expect those who are not following Christ to act like people who are. Taylor is just doing what many other singers, actors, politicians, and companies are doing. They want to be on the right side of history in this revolution.
Influencer
What I’m concerned about is Taylor’s influence on young Christians. I’ve seen the social media posts. She is hailed as the greatest of all time. In the eyes of many young ladies, she can do no wrong. In a post-Christian culture, many young people are quick to compromise biblical truth because they haven’t been discipled to even know the truth. Many don’t even know what it really means to be a Christian. Their thoughts are, “Taylor calls herself a Christian and is standing for these things so I want to follow her.”
If you have Netflix, let me go ahead and advocate that you watch this documentary. Swift fan or not, you will truly get a better understanding of the cultural majority mindset. If you have kids who are Swift fans, let me encourage you to watch it with them and talk about it in relation to God after it’s over. We can’t shelter our kids from these things so we should be the ones talking to them intelligently about them. It may be awkward, but I believe your kids will appreciate you talking to them about things that matter.
Conclusion
Given her talent, popularity, and influence, Taylor Swift is truly Miss Americana. However, our God is bigger than America and he’s bigger than this time in history. Jesus Christ is putting all things under his feet so we need to be the voices day in and day out pushing our kids to see a bigger picture than America here and now. We are living for an eternal kingdom that will be composed of every nation, tribe, and tongue ruled by the One who calls himself, “I Am”.
