Having recently opted for “all-American boy” Travis Kelce, it seems the days of Swift’s fetish for British men are over. Though, for a while there, it was going quite strong, starting with Harry Styles in his One Direction era. Swift then moved on to Calvin Harris (who would probably specify he’s Scottish, not British—but still), then Tom Hiddleston, then Joe Alwyn. The latter British bloke being her longest relationship at approximately six years (though maybe less, if one is to go by “You’re Losing Me” being written in early December of 2021). Even so, Swift didn’t seem to be fully convinced she was entirely “over” British peen, briefly dabbling with The 1975’s Matty Healy before quickly realizing how damaging he was to her “brand.” In fact, Ice Spice’s involvement in the entire dalliance (with comments Healy made about Ice Spice on a podcast quickly resurfacing during their time together) appears to be something Swift is still making up for now (after already giving her a feature on a “remix” of “Karma”), carting her along into the multimillion-dollar box (a.k.a. suite) seats she enjoyed while watching “her man” play in the Super Bowl.
And what she’s also apparently making up for is all that lost time without some good old-fashioned American dick in her life. We’re talking the kind of sausage that is as American as they come: an Ohio-born football player for the NFL. As for Kelce’s own recently-ended long-term relationship, it was with sports and fashion influencer Kayla Nicole Brown. Having been with her for five years (albeit on-again, off-again), it seems as though Kelce, too, wanted to make an about-face, “type”-wise. Because yes, Taylor Swift is about as far from a Black woman as you can get. Nonetheless, she’s been doing her best to get as close to one as possible by way of Ice Spice, who is clearly spicing up Taylor’s fucking life more than Travis Kelce. A man that has only served to bland-ify it with his Americanness and general lack of a “cosmopolitan” nature (let’s put it this way: he isn’t going to be putting a dress on or reading aloud from a book of Romantic poetry anytime soon). What her British boyfriends all possessed, even if only by sheer virtue of actually being in the arts as opposed to being football players. And that’s not a trait to be overlooked. For, as Swift saw forever crystallized in a meme of Kelce screaming like a wild animal in his coach’s face, it’s no good when someone has that much sports-driven testosterone coursing through their veins. You never know when it’s going to cause a rage flare-up. Though perhaps Kelce knows better than to fly into one around Swift, lest he risk having his temper tantrum immortalized in a song.
Although Swift isn’t a stranger to dating the all-American boy, including Joe Jonas and a Kennedy (Conor), Kelce is arguably the biggest cliche of what that trope represents. And it’s unlikely that, with future boyfriends, Swift will be able to ever top such a stereotype of what it means to “be American.” Unless, of course, she should decide to go the Lana Del Rey route and date a cop. But no, not even Swift could make cops “chic.” Football, on the other hand, is something easy to breathe life into once more (especially through a highly publicized end-of-game kiss, delivered in a Hollywood ending fashion). After all, it’s no secret that, in the U.S., all of life is just an extended metaphor for high school. Where the jock and the thin blonde girl are treated as royalty while the rest of the “student body” merely looks on with the requisite amount of awe and reverence. Thus, although some might have been growing fed up with Swift’s British bloke fetish, at least what could be said for it was that it didn’t reinforce the already barely latent idea that all the world’s a high school, and those with the “objectively” good looks and wealth are the ones who will be perennially rewarded by society’s capitalist values.
And yet, what’s also rather ironic about Swift’s sudden one-eighty toward embracing the cheerleader role in her football player boyfriend’s life is that she, at one point, viewed herself as someone who was not “football player’s girlfriend” material. In truth, it was the very song about this “difficulty” of hers that put her on the map beyond just the country music radio scene: “You Belong With Me.” In the accompanying music video, Swift plays the so-called dweeb (mainly because she has giant black-rimmed glasses holding her back from being seen as the “hot” girl) who lives across from her “cute” friend. Who, quel choc, happens to be a football player that she can’t seem to attain. Not only because she’s a “nerd,” but because he already has a cheerleader girlfriend (also played by Swift, in a very bad brunette wig…let’s just say she’s not sporting the same quality hair as Rachel McAdams in her ten-thousand-dollar [some even say twenty-thousand-dollar] wig for Mean Girls). Thus, “Nerd” Swift is relegated to the sidelines in a far crueler way than she is now, forced to watch the object of her affection look out toward Brunette Swift instead of her, all bedecked in her marching band attire.
By the end of the video, though, Swift, in the style of a true high school rom-com formula, takes off her glasses, puts on a form-fitting gown and shows up to the prom so that the football player dude can see how “hot” she actually is without her dweeb costume. Naturally, the two end up together. And Swift ostensibly admitted that she was never born for the “unpopular girl” role. Yet she held off for this long on returning to Brunette Taylor status by giving in fully to the high school fantasy/fairytale she conveyed to us long ago in 2008 (though the single and video were released in 2009). One she perhaps tried to stave off for several years with British men, assuring listeners at one point, “God I love the English” on Lover’s “London Boy.” Ultimately, however, Swift has succumbed to her most puerile desires from the Fearless era in seeking out the validating comfort of the all-American jock. And there’s no doubt that Matty Healy helped give her the final push back in that direction. With The Tortured Poets Department slated to be a scathing spotlight on her years spent with Alwyn, listeners will soon know even more about why Swift has returned to preferring her own Uh-muhr-ih-cuhn breed. Cemented by featuring a song on the album called “So Long, London.” De facto “Hello ‘Murica.”
Genna Rivieccio
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