Her name is known all too well, but her methods come with some surprising lessons, say experts from Brock University.

Taylor Swift has long solidified her position as a pop megastar, but her recent album, The Tortured Poets Department, has sparked conversations that go well beyond the realm of music.

Her latest release shines the singer-songwriter in a new light, one that is resonating with teens and young women in a different way, says Brock Child and Youth Studies Professor Shauna Pomerantz.

“There’s been a shift from sympathetic underdog Swift to powerful overlord Swift,” she says. “This album is angry. She’s tapped into something new and is showing teen girls and young women that it’s OK to express that anger, to express feminist feelings and to fight back when you’ve been hurt, whether by individuals or society.”

Pomerantz believes much of the criticism that’s been hurled at Swift over the past week since the album’s release has been rooted in both sexism and ageism.

“She is criticized in a way no man is ever criticized,” Pomerantz says, with focus placed on the need to “act her age” — 34 — and to get over the heartbreak-laden language that has permeated her songs.

That criticism has highlighted a lack of understanding of what women may be going through in the social media era, she says.

“There’s a valuable lesson here about showing your emotions without fear of what people are going to think — and say — about you.”

Pomerantz says Swift is caught between two disparaging positions for women and is criticized for both being too powerful in the industry and also for expressing feelings of being powerless in her personal life.

“She can’t win and she knows it,” she says. “The album seems like a throwdown to those criticisms and the impossible contradictions into which she has been wedged.”

Associate Professor of History Elizabeth Vlossak says Swift’s fascination with the past has introduced historic people, places and events to new audiences, often with those references carrying deeper meaning that requires further research to unearth.

“Swift frequently invokes the past as a poetic device to add new meaning and nuance to her story,” she says, while referring to the singer as a “true historian.”

“Swift doesn’t just incorporate elements of the past into her music — she also thinks historically,” Vlossak says. “She reflects on sources, interpretation, memory and preservation. She is keenly aware that she is herself both a historical actor and a product of a particular moment in time. She also understands that the way her story has and will be told will change over time.”

Connecting history to her own life, Swift often alludes to women who were vilified for not conforming to socially acceptable gender norms, drawing comparisons to how she herself has been impacted by misogyny within and beyond the music industry.

For instance, in There Goes the Last Great American Dynasty (2020), she recounts the life of American composer and philanthropist Rebecca Harkness (1915-1982), who hung out with Salvador Dalí and scandalized her wealthy, upper-crust neighbours for living so loudly. In her most recent album, she references Clara Bow (1905-1965), the hugely successful American actress of the silent film era who abandoned stardom at the age of 29 after being treated terribly by Hollywood.

“She assumes that her audience will understand the significance of these references, along with all her others. If they don’t, they will have to look them up. And this is indeed what Swifties do,” Vlossak says.

Associate Professor Liz Clarke in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film says Swift’s latest album has put the concept of fandom back into the spotlight.

The album features songs that implicate fans who seem overly invested in the singer’s personal life, critiquing those feelings of entitlement over Swift’s personal life, she says.

“We are seeing mixed reactions online,” Clarke says. “Fans are recognizing the critique and how they collectively feel like part of her circle. However, there’s also a bit of a disconnect where people are imagining that their response to Swift’s past romances may have been problematic while continuing to focus intensely on her current relationship, as though those aren’t two sides of the same coin.”

Clarke says this ready dismissal or redirection of the critique embedded in the songs signals a missed opportunity.

“This could be a wonderful moment for all of us to reflect on fandom and how we understand how we relate to not just Taylor Swift, but all celebrities,” Clarke says. “We’ve done this time and time again, especially with female celebrities, and I think it would be useful to sit in the discomfort of how fandom can blur the boundaries between public and private, or between our lives and other people’s lives.”