\n\n\n\nMiss Americana? Well, I don\u2019t have Netflix and there\u2019s no Alamo Drafthouse in town. But if I did see it I\u2019d probably analyze it less as a \u201cbehind the persona\u201d view than as the persona\u2019s newest, 2020, mirror in the hall
Yeah. It\u2019s crafted, alright.\u00a0 But like her whole persona, I think it\u2019s fairly representative of who she is, just optimized for clarity of narrative and edited to remove the guarded bits. The scene where they take off in a private jet feels too much like middle middle class casual, first time in this situation, to be believed and the way they are unprepared for stuff sliding around on takeoff too cute by half, but there was some level on which I bought it\u2026 just a good natured girl \u201cfrom Nashville\u201d trying to be normal in the situation.
\nThe narrative as presented is rooted the gifted child thing I\u2019ve accused her of.\u00a0 The takehome is she\u2019s trying to learn how not to tie all her happiness into whether others tell her she is performing well, which she feared is all she ever was. It\u2019s a terrible doc if you want more about her dating life (as presented, it\u2019s\u00a0\u201cI dated and people were shitty about it, I found a more stable relationship with a guy I will barely show,\u201d which was like 2 minutes screen time, one of which was her and London guy eating burritos which she \u201chad never had till recently\u201d) or her father (barely mentioned) or the impact of her mother\u2019s illness (sketchy details). Instead you get her relationship to her weight and political awakening, which is kind of cool to see presented from her perspective (Marsha Blackburn gets more screentime than anyone but Tay and mom and maybe Brendon Urie).
\nBut, since the doc is mostly about showing you how normal she is in an abnormal situation, there\u2019s a\u00a0\u201cI never grew up\u201d aspect that kind of oozes out.\u00a0 In the \u201cI put ice in my white wine\u201d part (I\u2019ll let you decode all the cultural shit packed into that) she essentially says red wine is for grownups which punctuates a theme of there being a line she\u2019s avoiding stepping over.\u00a0 The arrested development aspect of her as a lyricist and production deciderer (something I love and find fascinating) appears to be an aspect of an overall personality characteristic.\u00a0 She talks about having kids in a way that\u2019s so abstract she should have been playing with a Barbie when she did it.\u00a0
\nBesides the narrative itself, the most interesting thing is her working in studio. There is always a feeling that the\u00a0\u201cdemo\u201d extras on the albums were complete artifice and this, at least, felt more cherry picked than scripted. I would have liked more focus on the summer of 2016 as a clear cut point of crisis from which a new self developed, but mostly it\u2019s just odd that applying screenplay rules to a documentary feels like a correct approach.\u00a0 Worth a watch.
\nFor gods sake, just borrow someone\u2019s Netflix login like a normal person.
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Yeah, I guess her thing has always been “living out the iconic American White Girl life-course”, so she can make art of it
And that now includes “go to therapy for BPD as you turn 30”
Of course the Tayswift version of therapy is thinking about it real hard and getting autobiographical
I’d love to see the branded CBT worksheets, tho
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