As the halfway mark of 2024 occurs, further reflection on where society was this time last year can’t help but come to mind (and, for a start, there was no Israel-Hamas war yet at play). At this moment in 2023, the world (and the United States in particular) was waiting for Barbie to arrive in theaters, in addition to the masses being obsessed with the Eras Tour that Taylor Swift had embarked upon in March (another thing that also still hasn’t changed in ’24). That said, it was already shaping up to be the summer of white women—in theaters and at stadiums. But then, when mid-July approached, Britney Spears entered the ring as well (to quote “Circus,” “All eyes on me in the center of the ring”).
The announcement of a release date for her much-anticipated memoir, The Woman In Me (a nod to her 2001 single, “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman”—hence, re-releasing Crossroads as the only attempt at promoting the book on Spears’ part), was given on July 11th. It would go on to sell over two million copies by January 2024 (just a little over two months after it came out on October 24, 2023). So it was that the dominance of Taylor, Barbie and Britney signaled the continued reign of the white woman over pop culture. Thus, it was simultaneously shocking and not surprising at all that Time’s 2023 “Person of the Year” was Taylor Swift (gracing three different “Taylor’s versions” of the cover). Even though, by that time, the Israel-Hamas war had commenced, and many were outraged that Palestinians or journalists risking their lives in Gaza to document the horrors weren’t chosen instead.
But hey, if America has taught the world anything, it’s that “candy” is the best distraction from reality. That said, the accompanying Time article on Taylor Swift was written by Sam Lansky, who asserted, “She’s the last monoculture left in our stratified world.” This free and blithe admission of Swift’s “supremacy”—or whatever other superlative you want to attach to it—came at a time when, theoretically, it had never been less acceptable—in the media—to be white. And yet, 2023 was, for all intents and purposes, the Year of the White…women. With society having clearly pivoted toward the donna bianca as a more acceptable source for reverence than the white man.
Of course, don’t get it twisted, the white man is still very much the one with all the power. Or, as Bland White Executive in Barbie puts it, “We’re doing [patriarchy] well. We just hide it better now.” If banning abortion in fourteen states in 2023 was a way of “hiding” it at all. In any case, white feminism has remained the most tried-and-true, effective method for promising the masses that “something” is being done about the patriarchy. Rest assured, however, it’s not. All that’s really being “permitted” to happen is for white women to work within that system and profit from it themselves. Because, as it is said, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
Even the sacrificial lamb that is Britney Spears has found herself to be a beneficiary of this system. And yes, she “deserves to” profit from it after being abused for decades on end while her father, Jamie Spears, acted like her pimp as he whored her out against her will, making millions for himself and the rest of the Spears family members on the payroll during her needless, highly corrupt conservatorship. It was only after essentially “boycotting” the forced labor she was made to endure (namely, by walking out on the televised announcement of a second Las Vegas residency called Britney: Domination) that more people jumped on the #FreeBritney bandwagon. Because what “sensible” woman wouldn’t want to make more money if she could? Unless, of course, she wasn’t getting any of that money at all. Yet Spears has, to be fair, vowed never to be part of the specific system that caused so much exploitation in her life: the music industry.
Instead, she pivoted toward the literary world in 2023 with the release of her much-dissected memoir. Immediately selling 1.1 million copies (this includes all formats) in its first week of release, Spears’ book was able to quickly claim the title of “highest-selling celebrity memoir in history.” Though, of course, if Swift ever decides to release one, it’s probably game over for Spears on that front.
And, speaking of Britney and Taylor in the same sentence, three weeks after The Woman In Me’s release, Spears happened to post a side-to-side photo comparison of herself with Swift in 2003 and 2008, respectively, as she praised Swift’s success that year with the reflection, “This is way back when but kinda cool… During my Oops Tour, I got a knock at my door. My good friend at the time was the assistant to my manager who was trying to become a manager himself. There was a knock, and then he said, ‘I have a girl named Taylor who wants to come in and sing for you.’ I was like of course!!! He walks in, and she sings a beautiful song with her guitar. I was like wow wow she’s unbelievable!!! We took a picture, and she then became the most iconic pop woman of our generation. Kinda cool she plays stadiums, and I prefer her videos over movies any day. She’s stunning!!! Girl crush.”
So yes, for the “legendary Miss Britney Spears” to bow down to fellow millennial Swift (and mind you, bowing isn’t as easy as it used to be for “geriatric millennials” like Spears), it truly is a testament to how much power she’s managed to amass in the years since Spears was omnipresent…both on and off the radio. Indeed, after that photo of Swift and Spears was taken in 2008 at the MTV VMAs, Spears seemed to have forgotten ever meeting her at all…until now. Because power (read: fame and fortune) is the only thing that even the most “good-hearted” of women really respond to. And Swift is nothing if not powerful.
Hell, all-powerful, if her ability to work outside the limitations of the WGA and SAG strikes for the release of her concert film was an indication. And yes, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour was met with plenty of unprecedented presale demand at the online box office. The kind of demand that only Barbie could invoke just months before. Indeed, perhaps the only other blanca to briefly topple Taylor’s dominance in 2023, during the “Summer of Swift,” was none other than Barbie, de facto Greta Gerwig. To be sure, Swift and Gerwig profited immensely from railing against the patriarchy that summer…while simultaneously elevating the system that keeps it in place. All as they “bit the hand that fed them.”
Except that the hand hasn’t really been bitten at all. Quite the opposite, actually, as Swift and Gerwig have made the men who run their label and studio, respectively, extremely rich(er)—thereby further contributing to the continued success of the very system they’re decrying…even if only in theory as opposed to in practice. Swift herself appears to be aware of this, albeit on a faint level. This much seemed clear when she told Time, “[Women have] been taught that…girlhood, feelings, love, breakups, analyzing those feelings, talking about them nonstop, glitter, sequins!… We’ve been taught that those feelings are more frivolous than the things that stereotypically gendered men gravitate toward, right?” The interviewer, Lansky, agrees. Because obviously, Swift is going somewhere with this. And the point she wants to make about girlhood/womanhood “suddenly” being more commodifiable (as if it wasn’t already from the moment Madonna burst onto the scene and her Maripol-styled look went on sale at Macy’s in the Madonnaland section) is this: “What has existed since the dawn of time? A patriarchal society. What fuels a patriarchal society? Money, flow of revenue, the economy. So…if we’re going to look at this in the most cynical way possible, feminine ideas becoming lucrative means that more female art will get made. It’s extremely heartening.”
That’s one word for it. Of course, another word is suspect. Extremely suspect. For when we take a look at that “female art” (and, by the way, why is Swift the only one who gets a pass on saying “female” these days?), it remains not only decidedly white, but decidedly patriarchal as well. Because, in the end, constantly failing the Bechdel test in “female art” doesn’t exactly do much to “smash the patriarchy,” instead reinforcing it by placing all this weight on male attention and approval.
Gerwig, too, has her own sins to atone for when it comes to fortifying the very system she condemns. It can be no wonder, then, that both women are so laudatory of one another (as Spears is of Swift), with Swift commenting of Barbie, “To make a fun, entertaining blast of a movie with that commentary, I cannot imagine how hard that was, and Greta made it look so easy.” Likewise, Gerwig has gushed of Swift, “I’m just a sucker for a gal who is good with words, and she is the best with them.” At the very least, she doesn’t extrapolate entire lyrics from songs of the 60s and 70s like her “Snow on the Beach” collaborator, Lana Del Rey. Which probably makes Swift worthier of Gerwig’s assessment that she’s “Bruce Springsteen meets Loretta Lynn meets Bob Dylan.” Though Swift would more likely prefer to see herself as a composite of Joni Mitchell and Shania Twain. Again, more peak examples of white female hegemony. Though, in Mitchell’s defense, the content of her songwriting tends to get more political than the extent of “You Need to Calm Down,” “The Man” and “Only the Young.” As they did for supposed LDR foil Joan Baez.
Some would argue the sixties were simply a “more political time,” therefore gave rise to more political influence in music. But honestly, “the times,” as they are, couldn’t be more fraught with political, let’s say, “intrigue.” And yet, people have never seemed more terrified of asserting themselves in any way that might be deemed political. That Swift, knowing the extent of her power at this juncture, and still staying silent on a matter like the genocide in Palestine, is still choosing silence tells one everything they need to know about “power” in the twenty-first century. Because “speaking now” would also open her up to being “cancelable.” Something Swift insists, in the abovementioned Time article, she nearly was by Kimye back in 2016, when Kardashian released select recordings of Swift’s conversation with Kanye about the lyrics he intended to use for “Famous.” (As The Tortured Poets Department later taught us, she still had more bad blood with Kim to air via the oh so subtly titled “thanK you aIMee.”)
Many were surprised by Swift returning to this moment that happened “so long ago” (because seven years ago is practically a century in the pop culture cycle). But it makes sense. Swift can at last freely kick Ye while he’s down after that series of anti-Semitic rants that genuinely did get him canceled (until the inevitable reanimation years from now à la John Galliano). She can rail against Ye and Kardashian for being total twats as though to complete the job of white martyrdom that was already started by Ye at the 2009 VMAs. Where the illustrious rivalry between the two first began, positioning Ye as “the bullying black demon” and Taylor as “the innocent white girl.” It didn’t feel like a coincidence to dredge up this old racist stereotype as Barack Obama entered his second term, and it would become increasingly clear that America wasn’t really all that “down” with a Black president—hence, the about-face on the political spectrum that transpired with the 2016 election.
With Donald Trump and Joe Biden (Obama’s vice president or not) taking control (sort of) in the years that followed Obama’s presidency, the notion of monoculture did start to revive itself, even as the nation became increasingly divided. And it crested in 2023 with three white women. One of whom has been part of monoculture since the late 90s.
And whereas Spears’ career nearly was taken away from her by the sexist machinations of Justin Timberlake as he played into the time-honored trope of painting a woman as a whore when he wanted to discredit her, Swift was never in any real danger of losing favor with her fans. Though she insists that, after Kardashian released the misleading aspects of the recorded conversation, “My career was taken away from me.” An odd statement to make considering that she went on to release Reputation soon after, another multimillion-selling success. In fact, this is something Lansky himself calls out in the article, remarking that “when Reputation’s lead single ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ reached No. 1 on the charts, or when the album sold 1.3 million albums in the first week, second only to 1989, she did not look like someone whose career had died. She looked like a superstar who was mining her personal experience as successfully as ever. I am tempted to say this. But then I think, ‘Who am I to challenge it, if that’s how she felt?’ The point is: she felt canceled. She felt as if her career had been taken from her. Something in her had been lost, and she was grieving it.” When, however, are women of color in the mainstream (or in general) ever allowed that same luxury?
The white women taking centerstage right now are aware that their jig could be up at any moment, if things ever actually do change in terms of what constitutes what Swift deems “female art.” For there lingers around this art an inherent mea culpa for taking up so much space in an already highly competitive niche: making a (very handsome) living off music, writing or film (the first and third categories both overlapping with writing at the center of the Venn diagram). Thus, it’s not a coincidence that Lana Del Rey finally apologized (if only in lyrical format) for what she now perceives as her greatest Achilles’ heel—her skin tone—singing in “Grandfather Please Stand on the Shoulders of My Father While He’s Deep-Sea Fishing,” “A fallible deity wrapped up in white/I’m folk, I’m jazz, I’m blue, I’m green/Regrettably also a white woman.”
This lyric arrived three years after being called a Karen in the wake of her “question for the culture,” short haircut with blonde highlights and a weight gain that many on the internet refused to ignore. Because, Lana Del Rey or not, there’s nothing the masses despise more than a middle-aged white woman. That said, Swift might be due for her own reckoning with the public upon reaching Del Rey’s age, while Spears has continued to insist that she’s twelve years old (and sometimes younger). Though that, of course, has more to do with the mental schism caused by her hyper-sexualization at such an early age and the according mindfuck that comes with going from “Lolita-inspired sex goddess” to “forty-something.” Better known as: the pop culture equivalent of “crypt keeper,” even to this day. And, at present, that’s largely thanks to the supposedly woke generation called Z, as TikTok and its youth-seeking/-sucking/-centric trends brainwash their minds into even more warped forms of ageism than those who came before them.
What’s more, Gerwig, who turned forty in August, has intuited that the sun is setting on her own “time in the spotlight” as an actress. Ergo, an overt pivot to writer-director that she commenced in 2017, with the largely autobiographical Lady Bird. Set in her native city of Sacramento, Gerwig appeared to start taking up the mantle from the only other majorly famous white woman from that town (unless you count Molly Ringwald), Joan Didion. In fact, Gerwig wields Didion’s shade-throwing statement, “Anyone who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento” as the opening title card for Lady Bird. With that in mind, it once again speaks to the idea that, so long as a white girl can troll herself—have a sense of humor about her “blandness” and the bland place she came from—she is beyond reproach. Beyond “too much” self-questioning.
And while Spears spent about two hundred and eighty-eight pages “self-questioning” (or at least self-examining) in her memoir, she’s never much bothered with being “political.” She’s enjoyed the privilege of her white womanhood that way. In truth, mocking Timberlake in The Woman In Me for his blaccent and general white-boy-posing-as-a-Black-man antics (think: Seth Green in Can’t Hardly Wait or Jamie Kennedy in Malibu’s Most Wanted) in the late 90s and early 00s belies the reality that she’s guilty of her own appropriations, flirting with Asian and Indian cultures throughout the early 00s like a persona—in much the same way Madonna did during her Ray of Light era. Spears also had an especial fetish for hip hop culture, donning her baggy jeans and Timablands to fit the mold, or trying to emulate Snoop Dogg’s look in 2004’s “Outrageous” video.
After shifting to the “hip hop sound” that grew increasingly popular in the 00s, Spears’ work with The Neptunes on her third album, Britney, evidently paved the way for working with R. Kelly on In the Zone. Specifically, on the aforementioned “Outrageous.” And yes, it was outrageous for Spears—or any other woman, really—to work with Kelly after 2002, when video evidence of his already well-known sexual abuse of underage women came to light, making it glaringly public that he was a depraved asshole. Alas, Spears’ taste in men rivals only Eva Braun’s on the shittiness factor. But, as it is said, a girl’s father sets the tone for the future men she’ll gravitate toward.
It was only after being oppressed to the most extreme degree by patriarchy that Spears finally became an unwitting benchmark for feminism, where once she was accused of setting it back decades with her scantily-clad style and “we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes” politics. Not to mention her “I Was Born to Make You Happy”/“I’m A Slave 4 U” rhetoric. With the advent Swift and Gerwig, who were both, like Spears, forced to operate (a.k.a. “play the game”) within a male-dominated system in order to succeed, they’ve appeared to take Spears’ apolitical, pandering-to-the-male-gaze form of monoculture and transformed it into something more “palatably feminist” for the later twenty-first century.
Ironically, however, all three women are classifiable as “holdovers” from the toxic (no Britney pun intended) 00s, filled with its unmistakable brand of misogyny that was so clearly internalized and radiated back by the women who came up during that era (famous or otherwise). That the most noticeable three instances of monoculture in 2023 were embodied by such women doesn’t exactly scream “harbinger of change!” And, halfway through ’24, that remains apparent. Because, ultimately, all monoculture seeks to comfort and uphold the status quo we’ve known since cognizance. No matter how bad, phony or low-key buttressing of white men the messaging behind it truly is.
