The Pop Icon and the Football Man

The Kansas City Chiefs punched their ticket to the Super Bowl for the fourth time in five years last Sunday. They’ll face off against the San Francisco 49ers—who they beat 31-20 in the 2020 Super Bowl. I’m less than thrilled about this year’s Super Bowl matchup because I’ve seen this game before, and I have no reason to believe the Niners are a stronger opponent capable of toppling the Chiefs.

But others are less-than-thrilled because Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce is currently dating pop icon Taylor Swift. Kelce is very good at football and tends to score touchdowns. When he scores touchdowns, the camera typically cuts to an excited Swift in a luxury box applauding her boyfriend. For a normal person, this is sweet and fairly innocuous. Sadly, a lot of sports fans are far from normal. 

I personally don’t have any investment in Swift and Kelce’s relationship. They seem like nice people, so I hope they’re happy together, and if it doesn’t work out, I hope they find happiness with others. The love lives of rich and famous people don’t particularly interest me.

But I’m interested in this dynamic because of what it says about a current of misogyny running through our culture that keeps rearing its ugly head in all kinds of ways. In this case, we see echoes of the Delilah myth, where a strong man loses his strength because his lover betrays him. There are plenty of instances throughout pop culture of fans deploying this myth to smear women in proximity to popular men. Like Yoko Ono “breaking up the Beatles,” as if John Lennon (a pretty egotistical guy!) was some hapless sap who had no say in the matter. Or when pundits kept trying to blame Jessica Simpson for Tony Romo’s quarterback play, even though he was never a top-tier player.

But the dumb sports guys see Swift as an intrusion, and culture warriors are more than happy to fan the flames of misogyny. Swift riles up these weak men not because of who she is (they couldn’t care less about her as an individual), but what she represents, which is independence. Taylor Swift is a bigger star than Travis Kelce, and her success is completely separate from his. He’s a multi-millionaire athlete, but she’s a billionaire from the sales of her albums, tours, and merchandise. She is financially secure and celebrated within her field, and nothing with regards to her romantic relationship with Kelce will change that. When the camera cuts to Swift rooting for Kelce, it’s because she likes him, not because she depends on him in any material way. To those looking to uphold the patriarchy, this will not stand, and so Swift, by virtue of existing as a successful woman in a space dominated by men, gets treated like a threat.

Of course, no one can just come out and say that the successful lady is ruining my weekly time where I watch the big strong men run into each other at high speeds. So Swift gets labeled as a problem in ways that make no sense. They say that the relationship is hurting Kelce’s ability to play the game—like she’s up in the booth with a headset telling her boyfriend to go wide-right. Kelce isn’t the only guy in the National Football League in a romantic relationship, but apparently he’s the only one who, if he doesn’t play well, it’s because he’s dating someone. Swift also gets that favorite label of all idiot pundits: “a distraction.” All I’ll say about that is that if last year a guy briefly got killed while playing the sport I worship, I’d be pretty happy for any distraction, especially one who brings hundreds of millions of followers who would otherwise be uninterested in a game where no one can seem to agree what qualifies as a catch.

All of this hubbub is meant to put Swift in “her place,” a place that says no matter what dizzying heights you may achieve, you’re not allowed to outshine a man in his profession—even if those professions are completely different. Taylor Swift isn’t going to catch a touchdown anytime soon, and Travis Kelce can’t sell out an arena for people to hear him sing. These two people aren’t in competition with each other, and while every relationship involves compromises, “who gets to be the bigger star when we’re in two completely different forms of entertainment” isn’t one of them. It’s a construction made by people who loathe Swift for showing an audience what an independent woman looks like, and also disdain towards Kelce for being comfortable enough in his masculinity that he doesn’t seem to mind his girlfriend’s massive popularity. 

Watching weak guys thrash about online because of the Swift-Kelce relationship is witnessing sad attempts to coast on misogyny and sell that bigotry as wisdom. No adult individual should be invested in a romantic relationship between two strangers, and they certainly shouldn’t try to spin it to their own ends as proof why men need women who support them but it’s anathema for a man to support and celebrate a woman.

If you’re watching football and the thing that makes you mad isn’t the violence or the crooked owners or using the game as a recruitment vehicle for the military or that you need an advanced degree to parse what qualifies as a penalty, but that there’s a pop icon cheering for her boyfriend when he makes a touchdown, then maybe the problem isn’t Taylor Swift. Maybe the problem is you.

Recommendations

I haven’t fully cracked Beehiiv yet, and I fully admit that Substack has an easier recommendation system. Like if I go to Beehiiv.com, I’m greeted with a bunch of sign-up stuff, but if I go to Substack.com, I can at least search for certain publications. All of this is to say that growth on Beehiiv, at least right now, is a bit stymied. However, I’ll add that I’m still familiarizing myself with all the tools, so maybe in a couple weeks I’ll have a better lay of the land.

As for recommendations, the 1946 adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice is $10 on Amazon (50% off). It absolutely earns its status as top-tier noir, and should be placed next to the other James M. Cain adaptations, Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce. While I was at TCM, I got very into the films of John Garfield, who probably would have left a much bigger mark on Hollywood history if he hadn’t died from a heart attack at only 39. Postman is one of his best movies, and if you want to check out some of his other exciting features, make time forBody and Soul and He Ran All the Way.

Note: I get a small cut of sales made through my Amazon Associates link.

What I’m Watching

Last night I saw the new Matthew Vaughn movie Argylle. I’ll have more to say about Vaughn’s filmography in Sunday’s issue, but I figured I’d drop a brief review here for those interested in seeing the movie when it opens this weekend. If you haven’t seen the trailer, it’s about a timid author (Bryce Dallas Howard) who writes a series of bestselling spy novels, but then becomes the target of a shadowy organization when it turns out her books are able to predict what happens in the world of espionage.

The movie isn’t very good despite some crackerjack performances from Sam Rockwell and Bryan Cranston. It’s way too long to sustain its premise, consistently loses its emotional threads, and relies on twists that are pretty obvious to anyone even marginally aware of how these kinds of movies work. Also, despite Apple clearly throwing a lot of money at this thing, there are some moments where it looks comically cheap—like a scene where Catherine O’Hara, who plays the author’s mom, is standing at the doorway of her suburban home and the only thing that doesn’t look green-screened is the door. 

Anyway, if you’re familiar with Vaughn’s Kingsman movies, you’ll see the same stylistic flourishes and boneheaded choices that plague those films. Oh, and if you’re seeing the movie because you’re a Dua Lipa fan, note that she’s only in it for about ten minutes. 

Over in television, I’ve watched the first episode of True Detective: Night Country and Masters of the Air. True Detective hooked me immediately. I love the setting (Alaska during it’s night-only time of the year), the actors are great, and the show isn’t hiding from a supernatural element. Issa López, who helmed the terrific 2017 horror film Tigers Are Not Afraid, has a great approach to the material, and feels like the perfect person to revive this series. 

I wish I could say I was as thrilled with Masters of the Air. I’m a big fan of its preceding sibling series Band of Brothers and The Pacific, but in its first episode, Masters of the Air feels far too clean and sterile. Leads Austin Butler and Callum Turner don’t feel like soldiers as much as they play like 1940s actors in a movie about being in the Air Force. Furthermore, it lacks the grit of Band of Brothers and The Pacific. Part of that feels like a heavier reliance on CGI and digital photography, but also how director Cary Joji Fukunaga films the environments with a cold, washed-out palette. The only thing I really liked in the first episode was the way they showed the analog nature of these missions where things we take for granted (navigation, lowering landing gear) could easily go wrong. I’ll give it another episode or two, but I might bail out on this series.

Season 1 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians wrapped yesterday, and outside of Andor, it’s the best thing Disney+ has done. A big problem with the Star Wars and Marvel stuff is that it’s constantly nibbling at the edges of larger mythologies, so it rarely feels vital or interesting. Percy Jackson never had a great adaptation, and so this show feels like a fresh start to be its own thing and tell a compelling narrative rather than do housekeeping in a larger universe. Season 2 hasn’t been officially announced yet, but Disney would be foolish to let this sit on the shelf, especially with young actors that are quickly growing up.

I also want to highlight The Verge’s terrific half-hour review of the Apple Vision Pro. It’s thoughtful and does a great job of explaining what makes the technology impression while also showing the trade-offs that stymie its use. Reviewer and Verge EIC Nilay Patel does a great job of explaining that Apple is the only company with the resources and the talent to tackle VR in this way, and even they have run into some walls because ultimately this is not a great way to do computing. There’s a larger story here about the tech industry trying to find what lies beyond computers and little rectangles in our hands, and so far VR doesn’t feel like the answer to that question.

 What I’m Reading

I finally read the first issue of the rebooted Ultimate Spider-Man from Jonathan Hickman. The set-up is that because of some interdimensional meddling, Peter Parker and all other superheroes never became superheroes. The Peter Parker we meet here is 35, is married to M.J., has two kids, and works at the Daily Bugle, but feels like his life is missing something. He then learns he was meant for his fateful superpowered spider bite, and he chooses to take the plunge. That’s a fascinating premise for the character, and while I won’t follow it month-to-month (the first issue cost six dollars for a digital version! Future issues cost five dollars! That’s too much for a comic that takes less than 15 minutes to read!), I will pick up the first trade paperback when it becomes available. 

What I’m Hearing 

I’ve been listening to a lot of Talking Heads lately. I don’t know why, but you don’t really need a reason to enjoy Talking Heads.

What I’m Playing 

Super Mario Bros. Wonder remains a balm. I’m enjoying it immensely to the point where I kind of don’t want to pick up The Last of Us Part II because I know how bad it’s going to make me feel even though it’s acclaimed and excellent and so on and so forth.

Over on Decoding Everything

One of the many things Dave does is talk about television, and so I highly recommend checking out his podcast Decoding TV: