Taylor Swift’s Miss Americana trailer shows how the singer finally found her voice

Taylor Swift Netflix documentary.

Credit: Getty

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Taylor Swift’s Miss Americana trailer shows how the singer finally found her voice

By Hollie Richardson

6 years ago

Sundance Festival 2020 has announced its line-up, which includes Taylor Swift’s new Netflix documentary. Here’s what we can expect from it. 

In the last 12 months, Taylor Swift has spoken up for LQBTQ+ rights, taken on The Man with her album Lover and fought in a public battle for her own music. Oh, and of course, appeared in the Cats film

And 2020 is set to continue being the year of Swift as the star releases a new documentary.

Taylor Swift: Miss Americana will premiere at the Sundance Festival 2020. The Netflix film, which is directed by Lana Wilson, is a “raw and emotional” look at Swift as she “learns to embrace her role not only as a songwriter and performer, but as a woman harnessing the full power of her voice”. 

Swift has shared the first official trailer for the upcoming documentary on Twitter, which shows the singer grappling with fame and finding her political voice.

“Throughout my whole career, label executives would just say: ‘A nice girl doesn’t force her opinions on everyone. A nice girl smiles and waves and says thank you’,” Swift says in a voiceover for the trailer. “I became the person that everyone wanted me to be.” She says later: “I feel really good about not feeling muzzled anymore and it was my own doing.”

Going by the two-minute clip, the film will cover Swift’s year-long absence from the spotlight that followed her public-feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, how she came to the decision to share her political beliefs and finding happiness “without anyone else’s input”. We even catch a glimpse of her running off stage and into the arms of boyfriend Joe Alwyn.

Fans will notice that the documentary title, Miss Americana, is taken from the song Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince on her bestselling album Lover. It’s one of the most politically charged tracks on there, examining the current state of America by using the metaphor of a high school couple. 

Speaking about the inspiration behind the lyrics on Spotify’s Love, Taylor: Lover Enhanced Album, Swift explained: “This song is about disillusionment with our crazy world of politics and inequality, set in a metaphorical high school.”

She added: “I wanted it to be about finding one person who really sees you and cares about you through all of the noise.”

Taylor Swift performed The Man at the VMAs in a very political performance.

Credit: Getty

With that in mind, it hints that we really are going to get a real insight into Swift’s political mind during the documentary. Just to recap exactly what kind of year it was for the star while making the film: she has called out the sexism that women face in the music industry, started an online petition for LGBTQ+ rights in America, and talked publicly about how Scooter Braun now owns her music catalogue.  

And Swift’s documentary isn’t the only female-led listing on the Sundance Festival 2020 line-up.

Dee Rees directs Anne Hathaway in the Joan Didion adaptation The Last Thing He Wanted, about a veteran D.C. journalist who “loses the thread of her own story when a guilt-propelled errand for her father thrusts her from byline to unwitting subject in the very story she’s trying to break”.

And The Glorias, directed by Julie Taymor, is a drama about equal rights crusader, journalist and activist Gloria Steinem. Julianne Moore, Alicia Vikander, Bette Midler and Janelle Monae all star in the cast.

We cannot wait for all of them.

Images: Getty

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