Miss Americana is Taylor Swift's 2020 Netflix documentary that sheds a revealing light on the pop artist's personal life — or so the film's marketing would have one believe. Netflix describes the movie as a "revealing documentary" in which "Taylor Swift embraces her role as a songwriter and performer — and as a woman harnessing the full power of her voice." While the film does deliver some intimate behind-the-scenes glimpses into Swift's personal life, it leaves viewers with more questions than answers — particularly, how much of the songstress' life is being hidden from the cameras.
Miss Americana is a documentary by Lana Wilson that follows the life of American singer-songwriter, and superstar, Taylor Swift. It had its theatrical debut at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival on January 23 2020, and was released on Netflix, as well as in select theatres, on January 31 2020. The Netflix documentary has been highly successful for the streaming giant, as well as the star at its center: not coincidentally, the artist's latest single "Only the Young" was dropped the same day as the documentary, which not only features the song, but also shows Swift's artistic process as she wrote it.
Miss Americana does present some revelations about Taylor Swift's personal life and history, and it offers the artist another avenue through which she can connect with her fanbase. Those hoping to see a new side of the famously-open public figure will be disappointed, however: the documentary comes across as a carefully-calculated PR manoeuvre to help the artist further develop her recent progressive rebrand.
What Miss Americana Is About
Miss Americana is a documentary that presents a particular portrait of Taylor Swift, the human being, using home videos, clips from various sources (the news, talk shows, etc.) and original footage. Some of the clips used in the movie are familiar, especially the painful moments during the 2009 VMAs when Kanye West interrupted her acceptance to speech to say that Beyonce had the best video. The various news clips featured in the documentary are also familiar, more because they paint a recognizable picture: the press either praising Taylor Swift for being a positive role model, a talented artist, etc., or criticizing her by mocking her very-public relationships, saying she's too skinny, or generally dismissing the artist as annoying.
Lana Wilson's documentary reveals Swift's political side, which, until recently, was largely hidden from the public eye. The documentary shows Swift's own struggles with being over-eager to please: trying to be a "nice girl," cultivating a public image that was as inoffensive as possible, and even struggling with an eating disorder. After establishing a brief history of Swift's early years in the industry, the documentary focuses on Swift finding her voice during the making of her 2019 album Lover.
What Miss Americana Leaves Out
There are some notable, but perhaps not altogether unexpected, aspects of Taylor Swift's life that are left out of the Netflix documentary. All documentaries are created with a bias; this is the nature of media. Miss Americana is no exception, and Wilson's documentary clearly was produced with the mission of showing Swift in a particular light. The film works hard to depict a version of Swift who is both distinct from the reputation she has developed over the years, but is still on-brand for her current fanbase.
Taylor Swift's Famous Friends Aren't In It
Miss Americana spends a lot of screen time showing Taylor Swift in isolation. Her companions are most often her cats (the same ones she posts pictures of on her social media) and her mother, although there is a brief scene in which Swift has dinner with an old friend. The effect is that the documentary really emphasizes how isolated Swift is as an artist. Miss Americana suggests that Swift has few friends, and even less time to spend with them — the documentary predominantly shows Swift working, implying that her artistry (her tours, her songwriting, and her press events) takes up the majority of her life. There is even a moment in which Swift, via voiceover narration, says that she felt she didn't have anyone but her mother to share her success with.
The absence of Taylor Swift's "squad" is Miss Americana's most glaring hole. The group of women that Swift surrounds herself with has become as much a core aspect of her brand in recent years as is her wholesome small-town beginnings. The artist is a brilliant self-promoter, and often leverages her famous friends through her social media presence. Famous women like Selena Gomez and Gigi Hadid, who have long been associated with the artist, are virtually erased from Swift's life in the documentary.
Scandals Are Glossed-Over — Or Erased
Obviously Miss Americana couldn't show every small incident in the life of its subject in its mere 90 minute run; however, there are a couple of notable public scandals that are either glossed-over in the documentary or omitted altogether. Perhaps most interesting is the documentary's choice to abstain from discussing Swift's past relationship troubles — likely a calculated effort to efface the artist's reputation for exploiting her not-so-private love life for song material. Her hit "Dear John," for example, is infamously remembered as her revenge song about ex John Mayer. Miss Americana instead shows a young woman who is more than happy to keep her private love life private — achieved through showing that she has a love interest, but withholding any information about him.
Another aspect of Taylor Swift's life omitted from Miss Americana is her numerous conflicts with other celebrities, such as her long-time hostility toward Katy Perry, or Taylor Swift's feud with Amy Poehler. In 2013, Poehler and Tina Fey hosted the Golden Globes, and during the awards ceremony, they jokingly warned Swift not to pursue a relationship with Michael J. Fox's son. Swift took the joke personally, and later publicly condemned the two for making what she deemed a "sexist joke," saying in a Vanity Fair interview that "there is a special place in hell for women who don't support other women." Given how public the dispute was, and the fact that it would otherwise support the documentary's portrayal of a young Taylor Swift as insecure, obsessed with public opinion, and sensitive, it's telling that Miss Americana didn't even mention it.
Perhaps Swift's most well-known scandal, however, is his her ongoing feud with Kanye West, spurned by the aforementioned conflict during the 2009 VMAs. Miss Americana does bring up the event, as well as the very-public backlash that occurred following the release of Kanye West's track "Famous" in 2016, which contains the lyrics "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that bitch famous." Miss Americana largely glosses-over the sequence of events, focusing more on her upset at being called a "bitch" in the song. In reality, the controversy was a messy public disagreement between the two artists — one that left neither party in a flattering light. Originally, Swift's public condemnation of the song suggested she had no forewarning; when Kanye West's wife Kim Kardashian posted a video of her husband and Swift discussing the song prior to its release, Swift came across as a hypocrite, or worse, a liar. Rather than address this situation head-on and clarify what did happen, Miss Americana downplays the incident, positioning it as simply another example of how Taylor Swift's life is always under public scrutiny.