Liz Nancett is an English senior and Mustang News Opinion Columnist. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Mustang Media Group.
If you haven’t heard about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, you’re living under a rock. The attention of “Swelce” (a mashup of the couple’s last names) has led to the celebrities being both praised and criticized for this romance. Theories upon theories have suggested that heavily-documented relationships, similar to Swelce, are not genuine but, instead, lucrative. In other words, everyone assumes celebrity relationships with this much buzz have to be fake and for both of their financial benefits.
With the increased awareness of the business side of celebrity relationships, people immediately sniff out a “supposed” phoniness of a relationship to deem it a PR stunt. PR relationships are not a new phenomenon. They have most likely existed since the beginnings of media industries, but the past couple decades have revealed the existence of this media tool, which has led many people to become skeptics of any Hollywood romance.
Therefore, divorces come as “no surprise” and many comment on the “unnatural” look of the couple. In other instances, innocent and tame interactions between high-profile celebrities allow paparazzi and gossip magazines to plant a romantic seed in the heads of its consumers. This obsession with capturing the “true” romantic endeavors of celebrities has reached a voyeuristic level.
As a result, the validity of celebrities’ romances are almost always questioned. This is nothing new for Taylor Swift and any of her relationships, even her newest one. Swift, specifically, has a long history with the publicization and commercialization of her romances. To be specific, the first instance of a “tracked” romance began with her sophomore album Fearless in 2008, with songs assumed to be inspired by then-ex-boyfriend, Joe Jonas. Since then, fans, casual listeners, or just random people have grasped onto the “true story” behind her romantic ballads.
Since she was fourteen years old, the world has witnessed a young girl blossoming into this current powerhouse of an entertainer and entrepreneur. People following Swift want to witness the trials of her growing up in hopes of discovering her flawed humanness in the midst of her great power.
This obsession with “humanizing” celebrities seems to become worse the more intimate a relationship is. I believe romantic relationships have become the worst mirrors for the non-celebrity world. It seems to violate the most intimate parts of any individual’s life while also presenting the celebrity with insurmountable pressure to live up to an idealized standard of romance.
I fully understand the difficulties that a romantic relationship presents itself without having to suffer from the judgment cast by tens of thousands of fan-crazed glares. Celebrity romances, however, are even more intense as they occur within the censorship of the media.
The media likes to perpetuate norms that “should” apply to all romances. These norms are based on Hollywood stereotypes of love illustrated by hyper-idealized romance movies and songs, but this also means the media has set certain rules for celebrities that no human could constantly meet and fulfill in any romantic relationship. Consequently, these glorified aspects of romance need to be replicated in real-life celebrity romances to allow for romanticized romance to thrive and make more money in the box-office or in streaming apps.
I find that there’s great irony in this concrete definition of Hollywood romance. Romance, or more accurately love, is an abstract term. Romantic love is intangible, varied, and undefinable. Intangible in that it can never be physically held or presented. Varied in that it means something different to every individual and every couple. Undefinable in that there is no right or wrong.
Because every individual is so rare and will only be alive this one time, romance should be about an experience that can never be replicated. Therefore, intention is at the forefront of love, and it should be based on the intimate knowledge each person has of the other. This is why romance is undefinable, and the reason why an abstract term should not be cornered into ridiculous concrete rules that lead to questionable results. The certainty in Hollywood’s “dos and don’ts” of romance are simply a mirage for the love-starved that cannot comprehend that love has no rules.
These Hollywood norms convince people outside of this lifestyle that they should be held to the same expectations as the celebrities. With these unrealistic expectations being cast on “normal” people, fans believe that their duty is to ensure a reciprocal “checks and balances” of displaying romantic norms. This parasocial understanding of judging a relationship is frightening. Many of these spectators become enraged when a celebrity does not follow the glitz-and-glad romance rulebook.
As a result, Swift endures backlash as she attempts to find her own happily ever after, and she is always branded the girl who writes love songs about failed relationships. This misunderstanding of Swift stems from the inability of defining her experiences with love since it can’t be defined in terms of patriarchal love nor in terms of someone that isn’t her. If anything, Swift gets the true subjectivity of love. She is a master at providing her interpretation of love through her music with her attention to the specific details of her love. She is not only a great example of romance, but of a woman trying to break through the mirage of Hollywood love to a genuine sense of romance.