Feminist cultural critic Camille Paglia has some advice for Taylor Swift’s #GirlSquad and the young Hollywood feminists: drop the male-bashing “gender factionalism that thrives on grievance” and instead focus on “mentoring, exchanging advice” and the “results-oriented teamwork” that men have used to help each other advance.
In an essay for The Hollywood Reporter, Paglia takes on the so-called “girl squad” phenomenon popularized by Taylor Swift, who has become known as much for her famous female celebrity “squad” as for her musical output.
Swift has been collecting female celebrity friends and showing them off like a stamp collection: Lena Dunham, Selena Gomez, Lorde, Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid, Lily Aldridge, Chloe Sevigny. The list is exhaustive.
Paglia writes that Swift “should retire that obnoxious Nazi Barbie routine of wheeling out friends and celebrities as performance props,” a practice the critic calls “exhibitionistic overkill.”
“In our wide-open modern era of independent careers, girl squads can help women advance if they avoid presenting a silly, regressive public image — as in the tittering, tongues-out mugging of Swift’s bear-hugging posse,” Paglia writes.
But #SquadGoals don’t have to be all bad, the cultural critic maintains.
“With gender issues like pay equity for women actors and writers coming increasingly to the fore, girl squads can be seen as a positive step toward expanding female power in Hollywood, where ownership has been overwhelmingly male since the silent film era,” Paglia explains.
[…]
