I will slave and slave until I break into those slicks

the slicks (maggie nelson, 2025)

Cards on the table: I don’t like Miss Americana, the 2020 documentary where Taylor Swift was doing her best to show everybody the “real Taylor.” For me, it adds nothing that wasn’t already plain from her music: Taylor Swift struggles with needing to be perceived as good, Taylor Swift worries about being frozen at the age she got famous, Taylor Swift is angry at Kanye West and the Kardashians, and so on.¹

When you watch Miss Americana, it’s obvious that what you’re getting is not, in some new way, the “real Taylor.”² I don’t mean it’s false,³ more that “Taylor Swift, the unguarded person” is something only a small group of people experience. In every other part of her life, Taylor already lives like she is on a hot mic. Inviting a camera crew in doesn’t make much of a difference. It’s still the public Taylor, telling the story she wants to tell about her life. I would rather listen to her songs.⁴ Taylor Swift is never going to be the subject of a documentary that is interesting on its own …