“On the Right Side of History”: Taylor Swift’s Miss Americana and the Gauntlet of Cultural Liberalism

The culture industry is running on a marathon of apologies. In the post-reality-TV world of celebrity confessionals, specials by Aziz Ansari, Kevin Hart and, most recently, Pete Davidson, all build on the singular message: “I made mistakes but now I know better.” Miss Americana, the Taylor Swift biopic on Netflix, is a prime example of pop-culture apologia bound up in a coming-of-age tale. The film follows Swift as she leaves behind her small-town girl naivete to become today’s progressive archetype of the “independent woman,” a stand-in for the good conscience of cultural liberals.