The singer has consigned comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to hell for not subscribing to her smiley-face Stepford feminism
There are loads of special hells for women. For example, my friend Kim tells me that Buddhism offers The Pool of Filth and Blood, where loose women are condemned to float for eternity in a pool of warm menstrual emissions, which seems like one of those rare times when misogyny works out in the female favour. (Ha, you woman-hating suckers! I'm not scared of this stuff! I leak it monthly, and if anything it's less alarming than the contents of my local swimming pool.)
I think this is probably separate from the "special hell" to which Taylor Swift has consigned Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, for the mortal sin of making a joke about Taylor Swift. All right, all right – Swift didn't say it was for making a joke. What she said was: "There's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." Actually, maybe she hissed it rather than said it. Let's hope she hissed it, because it would be a waste to go around damning people in a pleasantly neutral tone of voice. And she said/hissed this in an interview with Vanity Fair, when asked about a gag Fey and Poehler made at her expense during the Golden Globes.
When you watch the section in question, it's hard to take it as anything other than a bit of sweet-natured teasing. Fey made a crack about Lena Dunham, she made a crack about Glenn Close being sauced (Close played along admirably), and then she made a crack about Swift's rep for serial romance. "You know what Taylor Swift? You stay away from Michael J Fox's son!" said Fey. "Or go for it," added Poehler, reasonably. "No!" rejoined Fey, "She needs some 'me' time to learn about herself!"
Now, if Fey and Poehler ever need a gal to step up as a punchline, let the record show that I am ready for them to hit me with their best shot. I will absorb their mild ridicule with all the joy of a seal getting socked in the face with a delicious fish – it's the least I owe those two for 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation. Sadly, Swift was not quite so amenable to a mild ribbing, and her response channelled the full talent for drama that makes songs like We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together and You Belong With Me (a song about making a move on another girl's boyfriend, consistency fans) so intoxicatingly teenage.
Now, if it's between hell with Fey and Poehler, and the purgatory of smiley-face Stepford feminism Swift prescribes, then call me a Dis-bound demon bitch and take me down, sisters, take me down. It isn't such a fiery binary, though, Fey and Poehler are too awesome and grown up to launch into a flame war with someone nearly two decades younger than them.
"Aw, I feel bad if she was upset," Poehler told The Hollywood Reporter. "I am a feminist, and she is a young and talented girl. That being said, I do agree I am going to hell. But for other reasons. Mostly boring tax stuff." Fey's reaction was to point out the obvious: "It was a joke and it was a lighthearted joke. And it's a shame that she didn't take it in the crazy-aunt spirit in which it was intended."
These comebacks are restrained because Swift is partly right. Sure, you could point out at length that Swift is being a bit of a sour-faced priss here, but there's no win for women in ripping chunks out of other women. Individually, it might win you a pass into lad culture (prove to the mean boys you despise your own kind as much as they do, and they'll tolerate you being the only pair of tits in their playground) but the invitation expires the minute you speak up for your sex.
That kind of nightmarish patriarchy-pleasing, though, is a whole world away from Fey and Poehler's Globes performance. In the act of being two kick-ass professionals with infectious warmth and friendship between them, there's a tacit feminist statement: hey, look, funny women don't need to sell each other out to kick ass. Meanwhile, Swift – in her delightfully serious Swiftian way – makes an outright appeal to feminism that summons the sisterhood to the noble cause of never ridiculing country-pop poppets.
Let's be honest: team Never Ever Being Self-Deprecating Ever does not seem like the cool, fun team to be on. It makes feminism seem ever so slightly intolerably boring. It also holds women hostage to one of the most ridiculous anti-feminist gotchas around – the one that goes, "Aha! You mildly criticised a woman! So how can you be a feminist?" The answer is that if you think women are interesting enough as people to disagree with, talk about, and sometimes take the piss out of, then you're probably doing feminism well enough to avoid the smell of sulphur.
