I can imagine a future where a portion of my paycheck is withheld, à la state and federal taxes, and siphoned directly to Taylor Swift. This seems like a logical progression because Swift keeps inventing new ways for me to give her money, and for some reason I keep handing it over. Her latest revenue stream is The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, a visual accompaniment to her new album, The Life of a Showgirl.
Though The Official Release Party of a Showgirl is playing exclusively in movie theaters this weekend and clocks in at 89 minutes long, it’s not quite a movie. (However, for anyone wondering, I checked and it is on Letterboxd.) Its main draw is that, until Sunday night, it will be the only place fans can see the music video for the album’s first single, The Fate of Ophelia. That song is 3 minutes and 46 seconds song, leaving about 85 more minutes to fill and not a whole lot of material with which to do it.
As cranky as I feel about Swift compelling her fans to pay for the privilege of watching what is essentially an infomercial for her album—an achievement worthy of Tom Sawyer, that—I can concede that providing ways for people to celebrate The Life of a Showgirl communally isn’t a terrible idea. After the massive success of the Eras tour and the movie version that followed, Swift proved that people will show up for just about anything she does.
There didn’t happen to be much community going on in the screening I went to Friday afternoon, though given solid ticket sales, I think that was just a fluke. On one side of me sat a group decked out in the Eras uniform of sequins, tulle, and heart-shaped sunglasses. Or maybe it was just the toddler uniform—all but one of them were between 2 and 5 years old. I chatted with the lone frazzled adult for a bit before the Party started, and she, a self-described longtime Swiftie, had only positive things to say about the new album, in contrast to much of the sentiment I’d been encountering. Then she asked me if I went to the Eras tour. I missed it, but it’s a mark of Swift’s power that I sometimes feel like I’m the only person on Earth who didn’t shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars for that special pilgrimage.
When the lights went down, Swift appeared on screen to welcome us and introduce the music video we came to see. Someone in the audience let out a half-hearted “yay,” and a sumptuous, old-school theater lobby appeared before us. In the video, Swift wore least five different costumes across elaborate sets, embodying different types of showgirls in different eras. One of them was the titular Ophelia, like in the Millais painting, so I guess we’re interpreting showgirl pretty broadly. After the video came some behind-the-scenes footage—a blurry video-conference where Swift detailed her concept, as well as Swift inserting a loaf of her much-discussed bread into one of the scenes, which she called a proud day for her as a baker.
Before long, the name of the album’s second song, “Elizabeth Taylor,” flashed on screen, and Swift sat in a director’s chair, providing some commentary on the creation of the song. There were no more high-budget music videos to watch, so it was to be lyric videos from here on out, interspersed with more explanations and making-of clips featuring Swift in director mode. Lyric videos, an invention of the 2010s, are what artists release when they don’t have the time or budget to make a real video but still want to reap the YouTube views. Swift’s Showgirl lyric videos are some of the slickest examples of the form I’ve ever seen, featuring lavish visuals from the Ophelia video and a kaleidoscope effect I feared would give me a seizure, but they are still, at their core, lyric videos. They’re designed to be listened to, not watched, so the act of sitting in a movie theater taking in 11 of them is fundamentally ridiculous. And this is coming from someone who can read—when the tykes in the party next to me got out of their seats and started running around at a certain point, I could hardly blame them.
Swift’s notes on the songs were rarely very revelatory. The best thing we learned might be that people sometimes reach out to Swift when they’re canceled, and she does her best to help them through it. Her and James Frey, I guess. It was funny to see the occasional concessions made to the pint-sized among us: She introduced the innuendo-packed “Wood” as a song about superstitions and nothing else. I also found myself giggling at some of the clean versions of the lyrics. The line in “Father Figure”’s chorus where Swift sings “my dick’s bigger” became “my check’s bigger,” and the “Actually Romantic” line “making me wet” became “making me sweat.”
I can see an event like this being more fun at midnight right when the album comes out, so people can experience the songs for the first time together. But very few of the people who are big enough fans of Swift to come to a release party would be capable of waiting 12+ hours for their first listen. At the Eras tour movie, people sang along, and maybe it would have helped if we could sing along here, but that too seems like a no-go, since these songs were new to everyone in the audience. As it stood, all we could really muster were some occasional muted cheers and attempts at applause, but we didn’t have the critical mass of audience members it would have taken to generate any real enthusiasm.
Swift ends the presentation by replaying The Fate of Ophelia video. You notice more the second time around, after seeing all that behind-the-scenes footage, but it also underscores that you really did just pay $12 (plus convenience fees) to watch one short video. Good thing you got to see it twice, because you’re not coming out of this with much else. For a showgirl, I wish she’d put on more of a show.
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