Taylor Swift Netflix documentary Miss Americana shows how singer has grown with her refusal to stay silent on politics
- Netflix’s Miss Americana is a compelling portrait of the singer recognising what she’s capable of and standing up publicly for her beliefs
- But Swift is also a prime example of the predicament pop artists face – to choose a political stance or say nothing
Early on in Miss Americana, the new Taylor Swift documentary, the then 16-year-old singer takes a moment to celebrate Tim McGraw, the 2006 hit that made her the youngest artist ever to write a No 1 country song that she also performed.
“I give myself, like, five seconds a day to say, ‘Yes, this is happening!’” the curly-haired, whip-smart teenager exults. “The rest of the time I’m trying to figure out how to make it last.”
She has not done too badly: seven million-selling albums, two Grammy album of the year trophies and legions of fans who pack stadiums wherever she goes. And her latest album, last year’s “Lover”, is both her most mature effort and a creative rebound after the mild disappointment of 2017’s “Reputation”.
Yet, to hear Swift tell it in the Netflix movie directed by Lana Wilson, all that success came at a cost: keeping her mouth shut. Miss Americana is about Swift becoming self-aware. It starts slowly, tracking her rise to fame and rehashing battles with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.
But the documentary gets seriously compelling when it sends a camera into the recording studio to capture her creative process, and when it focuses on two transformative events outside.