I’m sure you can sympathize when I say
that I spend just way too much of my
energy wishing people would say what
they mean like my students at UGA who
when I ask are you a feminist or when I
eavesdrop on them asking each other they
say no I’m not a feminist but and then
they say something that’s pretty
feminist and while it’s tempting to
blame this confounding contradiction on
Millennials I’m not a feminist but
actually has widespread appeal clearly
driving me crazy has absolutely no age
requirement
it’s like comedian Aziz Ansari says if
you believe that men and women have
equal rights and then someone asks you
if you’re a feminist then you have to
say yes because that’s how words work
oh now I feel bad that you left because
as a rhetorical critic that’s actually
not how words work it’s also not how I
believe that people work I’m sorry isn’t
forcing a binary either you’re a
feminist in which case you do believe in
gender equality or you don’t really
believe in gender equality and therefore
you’re not a feminist but you can’t have
it both ways
and Ansari’s binary seems natural
because we’re trained from birth to
separate our world into mutually
exclusive categories man woman black
white with us or with the terrorists but
binaries I know it’s funny unless you’re
with the terrorists but binaries aren’t
natural their rhetorical which means
they’re deeply ingrained habits of
language that help us move more easily
through our messy world that’s a useful
way to think of rhetoric if you like my
dad think that I spent nine years
getting a PhD and being a better
bullshitter binaries are rhetorical
because they force choice amidst
contradiction whittling a world of
possibility down into two orderly little
boxes and I don’t know about you but I
don’t want to live my life in two
orderly little boxes hell let alone like
just the one damn box which is one of
the reasons I love rhetorical criticism
the close reading of texts that compose
our collective common sense being a
rhetorical critic is like having a
superpower you see as if there’s only
the two choices either you’re a feminist
or you don’t really believe in gender
equality and you turn that into just two
possible ways of discovering options for
creating a shared reality which is why
I’m using my 15 minutes of TEDx uga fame
to help all of you become better
rhetorical critics and there’s no better
place to start than with perhaps the
most important I’m not a feminist but
moment of recent memory Taylor Swift’s
2015 music video for the hit single bad
blood a text so popular that it broke
the VEVO record for most views in 24
hours and so controversial that if you
google for those of you that are old
that means
stuff up on the web that if you do a
Google search for bad blood and feminism
you return almost a million results that
look like these and I’ll be the first to
admit when I first saw this video I was
not that taken it’s just rampantly
conformist type or consumerist more than
a little sexist ablest racist certainly
not a manifesto of women’s equality and
while I love the rest of Swift’s 1989
album and play it all the time I skip
over bad blood almost each time it comes
on it’s this weird combination of a
valley girl rant and a protest chant and
the verses sound like hey you you did
bad stuff I’m really mad so I’m gonna
yeah the chorus is way worse and I’m
going to need you to help me with this
one
so if you know it baby now we’ve got bad
blood you know it used to be mad love
you something did a good dude baby now
we’ve got bad blood hey and it wasn’t
until last year when I got a chance to
teach the politics of style which is a
course i teach here at UGA that i
finally sat down and read bad blood
closely like a rhetorical critic instead
of a plus-sized cranky mid-30s white
lady and thus a TEDx talk was born so as
we read together the eleven scenes of
this epic bad girl montage mashup try to
resist those binary instincts and
instead try taking the contradictions of
bad blood for what they are how most of
us live our lives especially women stuck
between style and substance and an
invaluable opportunity to start pushing
back against those orderly but
agonizingly restrictive little boxes
that run our lives and our politics in
scene one we meet catastrophe played by
swift a lady danes Bond type figure in
mid caper and her partner arson played
by millennial pop artist Selena Gomez in
this scene the combination of overly
produced fight choreography and
hyperbolic feminine TRO
such as booty bumping a chair into one’s
enemies while trading blows and
stilettos sends a pretty straightforward
message that women are all style and no
substance
reviewers seem to agree describing bad
blood as a Michael Bay trailer cut with
Mean Girls buried in stylistic choices
and post-production and that’s like two
different reviewers right and these
critiques sound awfully similar to
things we often hear said about
millennial feminism or what stylist
magazine has called feminism light quote
all brand and no substance
but feminist light starts to get pretty
interesting
after arson betrays catastrophe kicking
her viciously out a high-rise window
where she lands atop a conveniently part
Jaguar and strikes her striking a
classic damsel in distress pose the pose
is our first contradiction on the one
hand the pose is passive Scarlett O’Hara
level low is knee victimization but on
the other hand the pose is oddly active
its resilient it’s a coy middle finger
that declares a melodic vow for revenge
and is if that visually striking double
bind of feminity weren’t interesting
enough all of a sudden the words
produced by Taylor Swift splash across
the screen and they demand this
secondary reading of woman as production
simultaneously the producer maker and
master of her own impressions and
product the passive victim of her own
oppressions then Swift is whisked away
to some underground rejuvenation chamber
where her wounds heal quickly
next in scene four we find Swift
vigilantly marching through some kind of
underground locker room for Secret model
agents where she’s clearly recruiting
for something big and Swift in her
cohort glower at the camera positioning
us the audience as enemies allies and
onlookers all at once
then having gathered together her
revenge crew Swift disposition for the
inevitable next phase of any decent
payback plot the training montage
only this training montage has very
little to do has very little to do with
mastering combat rather this is training
in stylishness itself these oversized
glass human display cases in a random
transparent car parked in the middle of
nowhere suggest that these women are
learning to be watched and be watchful
it’s almost like a living museum exhibit
that reads come and see the 21st century
woman’s modes of resistance its training
and production in being simultaneously
producer and product then Swift gives us
one long last
steamy look before she begins her final
phase of training in style however in
contrast to the previous scenes which
were well lit with chick publicity in
these combatants only look at each other
positioning us the viewers not so much
as allies or spectators but really
creepy trespassers and some kind of
underground women’s Fight Club and while
the previous scenes were individuating
the women were introduced one by one
with clear facial shots and proper names
this scene is massif eyeing a group of
unnamed women in homogenizing white tank
types gather around the room to watch
the combatants and it’s tempting to want
to read this particular scene as the
final moment of real substance in the
training montage where there’s finally
some actual fighting that looks decent
and no longer focused on the what
everyone’s looking at or what I’m
wearing or what you’re doing women can
finally get down to the brass tacks of
actual feminism but before we give
ourselves over to that reading consider
this it’s not an accident that at the
very moment that the women deprived of
their proper name and disposed to a
space of traditionally masculine
violence and domination suddenly no
longer read as feminism light and if we
give ourselves over to that reading that
binary impulse we’re at
is one place and style as this other
thing that we do we’re not only denying
agency to millennial feminism in all of
its contradictory forms we’re also
denying centuries of oppressed people
who were denied access to the space of
action like speech politics in the law
and therefore had to use style and
spectacle to speak truth to power
finally having completed her training
montage Swift and her crew freshly
styled begin the inevitable march toward
their final showdown with arson and
company as explosions rain down from
nowhere the length of the world’s
largest parking lot and a gratuitous
sprinkling of training flashbacks delay
and delay as we the audience wait and
wait for the inevitable moment of
vengeance accept a vengeance never comes
instead during the last three seconds
catastrophe and arson cross arms in
violent syncopation as the last Hey of
the chorus rings out and we’re lyft
leaving a little unsatisfied accept the
cross is the final contradiction and the
perfect way to end bad blood because
it’s not a real ending the cross could
mean so many things it could mean that
they actually went blow-for-blow in some
kind of beautiful sophisticated martial
arts scene or some really bitchy
catfight that would have just been
embarrassing for everybody or maybe they
went in for it and grabbed some hair and
then they went no I’m sorry no I’m sorry
I’m sorry no I’m sorry for maybe they
got over it shook hands decided to
collaborate made peace talked it out
like women are supposed to do but the
point is that by choosing none of these
options bad blood sort of leaves all of
them on the table and so in closing I
just want to ask isn’t that what you’d
rather have from the next generation of
feminists to have it all on the table
rather than just a group of people who
say what they mean thank you