Ok, so I can’t get Taylor Swift’s new song The Fate of Ophelia out of my head, it’s just in there, playing on repeat. It’s TikTok that put her chorus into my brain, but also TikTok that presented me with many (often critical) interpretations of what this song (and the whole album) actually means. While there are many theories and interpretations out there, the simplest one is that Taylor portrays herself as a tragic character metaphorically “drowning” in melancholy until she finds her great love, meaning Travis, who saves her. Well, that’s romantic and sweet, but… Do we need a but? Shouldn’t we just be happy for Taylor?
Does our happiness for her need to be tinged with the concern that her song is promoting a toxic narrative, one that has gotten oh so many women (including poor Ophelia!) in trouble? I always bristle against the idea that romantic love (or even worse, marriage or motherhood) is the ultimate way for a woman to find fulfillment. Sadly, we don’t live in a fairy tale and love is more likely to drown than save you. You can lose your head (hopefully not in the Anne Boleyn way) and your independence. You can lose your chance at following your dreams and get stuck doing laundry and raising brats. Given all these pitfalls, romantic love is, best case scenario, lagniappe. The icing on the cake for the woman who is secure in herself emotionally, financially, professionally, artistically, and then some! Someone who has the resources to get herself out of a relationship turned sour should she need to. With her successful career, her talent, and her billions, that person is definitely Taylor Swift. So you go, Taylor, let yourself fall in love and enjoy it! Write songs about it, have your dream wedding, have the best time ever!
As to the rest of us, let’s not see this as the siren call of the 1950s with their emphasis on family and the trad wife aesthetic. We are neither Ophelia nor are we Taylor Swift. We all have much more agency than a medieval maiden (I hope! Though I worry about some Ophelias out there who are only too eager to give up their power), and yet we all have considerably less options than a billionaire superstar like Taylor Swift. We also don’t have some of the constraints that come with her fame and fortune, and thus, most of us should hopefully be a lot less lonely. Perhaps this song is about her and not about all of us, and perhaps we’re meant to listen, dance, enjoy it, maybe even empathize with someone so different from us who’s letting us peek into her inner world. Then we need to remember that her tower is taller and she might have felt quite isolated up there and fantasized about a romantic rescue (in a very attractive package, no less), but her safety net is also wider and stronger (should the prince drop her). After we hit repeat and dance around the house one more time, because the song is catchy, we should all then proceed to build our own dreams, our own beautiful towers, our own safety nets. And if the prince fails to materialize, we won’t drown. And neither would Taylor. She’d write another album about it, then go on with her beautiful life.
