Camille Paglia, a feminist writer and theorist, wrote a damning critique of Taylor Swift’s tendency to curate her group of “friends” and bring them onstage as testimony to her good taste, or dominance, or what have you—namely, the phenomenon that has become attached to the use of #GirlSquad. In an article for The Hollywood Reporter, Paglia posed the question: “Do girl squads signal the blossoming of an idealistic new feminism, where empowering solidarity will replace mean-girl competitiveness?”
Paglia offers that the answer can be in the affirmative, if they avoid the form that Swift’s famous curating seems to be taking:
In our wide-open modern era of independent careers, girl squads can help women advance if they avoid presenting a silly, regressive public image — as in the tittering, tongues-out mugging of Swift’s bear-hugging posse. Swift herself should retire that obnoxious Nazi Barbie routine of wheeling out friends and celebrities as performance props, an exhibitionistic overkill that Lara Marie Schoenhals brilliantly parodied in her scathing viral video “Please Welcome to the Stage.”
