Down with the Snobbery
Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Taylor Swift, and the Triumphant Marriage of Alternative & Commercial Art
SPOILER ALERT for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
It’s been quite a summer for entertainment. Tens of thousands of people are gathering outside the stadiums where Taylor Swift is playing to upwards of 70,000 fans in every city on her tour for two and three nights straight to sing along and dance their faces off. My Instagram feed is clogged with videos from the concert, each one garnering hundreds of thousands of likes – which have the remarkable effect of transporting me straight into my own concert experience; because her stage and costumes are the same in every show, and stadiums are essentially interchangeable, I might as well be in Detroit or Tampa (except I saw the rain show at Gillette – go ahead and eat your heart out.) It’s like all the millions of us have been together, singing along, all the damn cruel summer.
What millions of young women have known from the start—that Taylor is a genius with unparalleled insight into the human heart—everyone in the music industry has finally had to come around to admit as well, particularly after she released folklore and evermore, and her brilliance was anointed in duets by the indie-hipster likes of Bon Iver, HAIM, and The National. While Swift certainly didn’t engage is these duets to prove herself—she had nothing to prove—the partnerships did marry her Pop Queendom to Alt-Rock’s Principalities, and expand her empire exponentially. If only Danaerys Targarian had made such a match instead of mounting her dragon.
Anyone still standing on principle that Swift’s brand of commercial music is anything other than Art of the highest order needs an ego check.
Seeing Phoebe Waller-Bridge go toe-to-toe with Harrison Ford in the latest installment of the Indiana Jonesfranchise had something of the same effect, sending high-brow cine-tv straight down the nave to marry pop, making yet another power couple of Alternative and Commercial. The writer-star of the cult hit Fleabag was a wry, feminist, comedienne of the highest order in the summer adventure flick—but the thing is, Waller-Bridge doesn’t actually carry the film. Her acerbic wit (and yes, her Royal Academy-trained accent) adds a strain of gravitas, not unlike Alec Guiness in the original Star Wars, but the movie actually manages to be brilliant on its own steam, gamely and humorously taking on themes of aging (like last summer’s equally terrific Top Gun), as well as revisiting its own previously unexamined plots of cultural appropriation and looted masterpieces with fresh, 21st century eyes.
And we have more weddings of this kind to look forward to: Barbie and Oppenheimer are both coming out July 21, inspiring people to see the strangely compelling double feature known as BOppenheimer, and Barbieitself is directed by art-house filmmaker Greta Gerwig and looks like it could do for bright pink what no movie has done since Legally Blonde.
The true pièce de résistance, though, for those of us who grew up on the dualing Harrison Ford-George Lucas series of Jones and Star Wars is the final scene in this summer’s Dial where there is a moment of tenderness between Indy and his long-suffering wife Marion, from whom he’s be estranged the whole movie, when the John Williams score swells around them, and moviegoers only be able to see Han getting his moment of reconciliation with Leia, which was so cruelly stolen from him—from all of us!—by the premature death of Carrie Fisher. Two birds with one glorious cinematic stone.
Why does any of this matter music-and-movie stuff to me, a writer of historical fiction? Because I love it when commercial art gets recognized for being more than just a crowd pleaser. And to be honest, I’m tired of the attitude that “literary fiction” has more literary merit—and is deserving of reviews in fancier publications, and discussion in more reverent tones—than commercial fiction. Music and movies are breaking these barriers, gloriously merging alternative and commercial forms, so why not publishing? If you really want to get into the nitty gritty of this conversation, I’ll refer you to Jennifer Weiner, who has championed “women’s lit” for decades, and Lincoln Michel here on Substack.
Here, I’d like to plead for an attitude adjustment from all of us. Where are you holding on to artistic snobberies? Can you start to dismantle them? Instead of hiding those Nora Roberts novels on your Kindle, alphabetize them on your shelves, nestled right between Geoff Nicholson and George Orwell for all your guests to see. Stop talking about comics like they are different from award-winning graphic novels. Don’t refer to your penchant for vampire lit as a guilty pleasure.
Words matter. How we talk about art matters. Let’s not put indie/alternative art on a pedestal; doing so only keeps it in the atmosphere, out of reach from the millions of consumers who might also love it. Because of Waller-Bridge’s knockout performance in Dial, I’m sure millions of people will now discover Fleabag. As surely as die-hard National fans came around to Tay-Tay. As surely as your date checking out your bookshelves might be inspired to pick up Geoff Nicholson if they see you also like Nora Roberts.
Don’t be a snob. Embrace it all, because democratizing your tastes will actually help the artists you want to have long and fruitful careers flourish—more eyeballs means more money means more art. It’s ALL art. Love what you love, and do it proudly. There is plenty of love—and art—to go around.
Absolutely love this!!!! I loved Flea Bag too 💕💕💕
Yes, yes and yes to all of this! And I'm super jealous that you got to go and see Taylor Swift – she isn't coming to Western Australia and my daughters and I are devastated!!