Before we get into the TNT of it, a minute first on Taylor Swift getting booed at the Super Bowl. If you haven’t already, I recommend Stephanie McNeal’s piece for Glamour. Stephanie was at the game, and has excellent insight on that booing moment and why it’s much more sinister than just a fan loyalty and old fashioned rivalry situation. This has to do with who else was in the stadium that night and the movement that put him (back) in his current position.
As Stephanie points out, when during the first season of Taylor and Travis Kelce’s relationship, the NFL was practically begging her to attend their games, and the rating and attention for those games went way up. Taylor’s fans – predominantly girls and women and also members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community – were f-cking with a sport and a league that they’d never previously given a sh-t about. The sport and the league were reaching new fans which, by the way, is always the goal. Ratings for the Super Bowl in 2024 went up and that record was broken again this year. But the bros weren’t happy about it.
Cut to a year later and that toxic male energy has only been empowered. And at the Super Bowl it was on full monstrous display towards its favourite target: women. I’m not saying Taylor Swift represents all women but in this case, in addition to being one of the biggest stars in the world, as Stephanie McNeal argues in her essay, she’s also a proxy for what this dark movement has been trying to delete from previous four years:
“In the stands last night, though, it felt like the bros were winning. As they jeered and booed, I could hear the undercurrent of hatred and felt the real-life manifestation of the trolling I had previously only seen virtually. Trump is president, they seemed to say, and the era of inclusivity in the NFL is over. Swift, and all of us who have had fun watching her in her WAG era, need to be put in our place. It felt gross and mean. It also felt significant.
In an era where Trump is singlehandedly dismantling decades of diversity, equity, and inclusion that generations of women, people of color, and queer people have fought for, the Super Bowl felt like a microcosm of a larger problem. Not only does it feel like Trump and his ilk want Swift out of football, it’s like they want to return our entire country to a time when they were in control, had all the power, and could say whatever they wanted without repercussions.”
I am not a football fan, I didn’t give a sh-t about the outcome of the Super Bowl in terms of the teams on the field. I am also not a hardcore Swiftie. But I do care about safe spaces. And it tells you something, when someone as powerful as Taylor Swift, with all her privilege, her access, her resources, is being told she is unsafe in a stadium she has repeatedly sold out throughout her career; when the president of the United States makes a point of singling her out after the event, extending this obsession he’s had with her for years; what it tells you is how much America hates women and how no woman is immune from that f-ckery.
While we’re here then, keep that in mind when you’re talking about Taylor, particularly as it relates to one of her friends, and how the internet continues to assign power to that friend who is currently embroiled in a lawsuit. Seriously?
And now to TNT…
It’s the first time in the 18 months or so that they’ve been together that there’s been no trophy, no championship, no winning momentum. Travis was coming off a Super Bowl title when he first pursued her. He succeeded in his pursuit of another title during their honeymoon phase. She, meanwhile, was in the midst of a record-breaking tour. An elite athlete like Travis would, understandably, be crushed by a Super Bowl loss. And he’s in the twilight of his career. Even I’ve seen the posts on my timeline about how much slower he’s been this season, how his body is showing the wear and tear of so many seasons in a punishing league.
This, then, is when it might get tough. There is no tour as a distraction anymore. Her schedule is wide open and so is his, at least for the next few… long… months. They have time to be together as much as they want without having to get on a plane and perform. On the plus side, it means they can actually go on holiday, a true holiday, that doesn’t have to fit in between concerts. On the potential down side, well, it’s time. Having no time is stressful. Sometimes, though, having too much time can be scary. Not for everyone, but I say this as someone who isn’t good at being idle. I am not at my best when I’m idle. I don’t get the sense that these two are all that great at it either.
Then again, losing is often the best motivator. If you love a Rocky movie, you know what I’m talking about. And what could be sexier than watching and cheering on somebody who is trying to make a comeback? Taylor Swift f-cking loves a comeback. In her competitive, apex predator brain, she probably thinks she’s had to comeback and bounce back at various points in her career despite the fact that it’s been a while since she’s truly been an underdog. If this were a script, it’s exactly how season two was supposed to end – see also The Empire Strike Back, LOL (but maybe not so LOL considering the “Empire” is actually a real thing now) – setting up for the Return of the Trav.
