Why is everyone so fascinated with Taylor Swift’s wedding? | Canada Voices

You don’t need to be a Swiftie – or a Chiefs fan – to have had your social media feeds flooded with coverage of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s reported multi-day wedding celebration, which is set to culminate on U.S. Independence Day.

From reports of New York’s busiest streets being disrupted to the confirmed rental of the city’s iconic Madison Square Garden, the couple’s nuptials have generated the kind of hype usually reserved for a Taylor Swift album release.

The predictable response is that the media has inflated what is, at its core, another lavish celebrity wedding, when attention could instead be focused on more pressing issues: government corruption, wars, and the ongoing fight for the rights of women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities. It’s a criticism that’s difficult to dismiss, particularly after reports that The New York Times assigned a team of two dozen to cover the wedding of a pop superstar and an NFL champion.

But Elizabeth Vlossak, a professor at Brock University, sees something more revealing beneath the spectacle. Prof. Vlossak, whose A Swift History course became the fastest-filling class in the university’s history, reaching capacity in just 19 minutes, is currently writing a book examining the historical themes reflected in Ms. Swift’s career. She argues that the fascination may be less about celebrity excess than about a society searching for moments of joy amid political polarization.

A lot has been said about where the couple has decided to get married. Why do you think New York City was what they landed on?

It is so important to her. Even though it’s not where she was born, New York City is where she got her big break and was really the first big city she lived in. It is significant because it’s also her signalling that this is her city – even if its a place that MAGA hates. They hate the mayor, Mamdani, and what New York City represents: the epicentre of culture and art. It’s definitely a message to us: she’s staging this very personal event in one of the most famous music venues in the world.

Do you see her as close as possible to American royalty, along the lines of the Kennedys?

Oh, definitely, but a different type of royalty – a self-fashioned royal. She’s not a descendant. She’s not a Kennedy. She doesn’t come from an elite family. She’s created her own Camelot, and the fact that she’s marrying a football player – you can’t make this up. It is so American Pie, which is why people think the relationship with Travis Kelce is actually manufactured.

What do you think of the reports that Stevie Nicks is attending?

Stevie Nicks is the queen of rock, and they’ve formed quite a bond, so Taylor Swift sees her as her musical mother.

What do you think this wedding means at a moment when both left and right pundits argue America is facing both a constitutional crisis and a crisis of public confidence?

What Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce present is a new Americana that the rest of the world hopes for from America. They are presenting it on the Fourth of July weekend for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It’s her favourite holiday, but also a musical and cultural event rather than just a celebrity wedding. Who knows what’s really going on or how it’s being filmed? Is this actually going to be part of a documentary? Will it be watched by millions? Are we going to get to watch this crafted, curated moment from her the way she wants it? That would track.

How different will the next iteration of your Swift history class be after this wedding happens?

I’m excited about that because I’ll be able to incorporate the wedding into the class. I talk a lot about her fashion and the way she is always self-fashioning herself in public through the ways she brings together high and low brands and styles into her wardrobe and music videos.

Why do you think Swift’s Easter eggs and clues are so central to her strategy or process?

One of the reasons I was drawn to Taylor Swift in the first place was when Folklore was released. I started to listen very closely to that album because it was not what I had ever imagined Taylor Swift to be as a musician. It engages so closely with a lot of the questions that I, as a historian, grapple with. She’s not only writing about herself but also a figure from the past through “The Last Great American Dynasty.” In Folklore, she’s exploring Rebecca Harkness and so clearly had done research into this woman, who had been the original owner of the house she now owns.

So is Taylor Swift like a historian?

Historians are storytellers, able to communicate the past to the present for the future. She’s engaged with history throughout many parts of her career – music, fashion and appearances – with some critical analysis, presenting her work in a way that is engaging and informative. By exploring her references to history, present generations can make sense of the world in which they live.

Which women of the past do you feel fuel her today?

She’s fascinated with “women who behaved badly,” like Rebekah Harkness [a long-deceased oil heiress who loved to throw parties and whose US$30-million dollar home Taylor owns]. In songs like “The Last Great American Dynasty,” Taylor talks about her and Hollywood stars from the past who were mistreated by the media or by society and shunned because they didn’t conform to expected gender roles.

How do you think she sees America?

With a certain reverence that many have forgotten, and through the lens of an artist. Even though she has written about earlier periods of history, so much of her music is rooted in 20th-century Americana and 21st-century history. She’s deeply connected to her own family genealogy and has done a lot of research into the lives of her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, and her grandfather, who served in the Second World War and fought in the Battle of Guadalcanal. She’s interested in where she has come from, both personally and in terms of the society in which she is rooted.

What shared common ground do you think she has with successful politicians?

She has this very charismatic personality. She was once interviewed by a British radio DJ who clearly wasn’t overly impressed with her. Yet as the interview went on, she started saying things that disarmed him. That’s something she does – she’s able to disarm people. I don’t know how much of this is innate, but we know she works incredibly hard. It’s probably also extremely well rehearsed. Really good politicians put in the time. They study people, understand their audience, and the most successful ones are able to galvanize a group and get people to sign up to their cause.

How has her personal and professional life left a stamp on modern-day girlhood and womanhood?

One of the lessons in my class is tracing the 20th century using Taylor Swift’s music and connecting it to movements such as second-wave feminism. In “Lavender Haze,” she sings, “I’m damned if I do give a damn what people say / No deal, the 1950s shit they want from me.” It directly speaks to women in post-war America and the expectations placed on women in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. It’s music that reminds them, “I’m here because of the women before me and because of what they had to endure.”