Taylor; Art’s Most Erotic

“Coming five years after the slick, stage-managed Netflix documentary Miss Americana, this one is more … popcorny. (Neither approach brings us any closer to the real Taylor, obviously.) The action toggles back and forth between years – sorry, eras – as a former manager, producer, bandmate, PR guru, music journalists and superfans reflect on Taylor Swift the global phenomenon, brand, proxy for girls’ feelings, bellwether for how society views women, and so on. I would have liked more on Swift herself, her childhood especially, to get a sense of the conditions that produced a girl with the gumption to ‘go to every major label in Nashville and say: ‘I’m Taylor, I’m 11, and I want a record deal!’”
Chitra Ramaswamy, The Guardian

“Those who featured here made a good job of explaining why she inspires such intense admiration. Three young women who grew up with her music spoke eloquently for millions, as they told how Swift’s highly personal lyrics had given them courage to cope with emotional traumas. But the documentary lacked insight from people who know her well — no close friends, no one who has worked with her in the past decade, and certainly no ex-lovers. Instead, we got a lot of filler, in the form of animated doodles that imagined a peek inside a teenage Taylor’s diary.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Given that some of the criticisms of Swift have been misogynistic (she’s a man-eater for dating like a normal woman; she writes about vapid trivialities for girls), it’s a sweet (and smart) move for King to use much-maligned Swifties – aka Swift fangirls aka Swift experts – to help tell the story. They offer never-before-heard anecdotes about the star, while journalist Zing Tsjeng weaves together a sharp analysis of the myths surrounding her, tracing the shifting tides of public opinion across cultural moments.”
Hannah Ewens, The Independent

“It’s an unapologetically serious affair, with Waldemar Januszczak searching for deeper meanings, noble(r) intentions and, ultimately, the historical and cultural significance of all this bygone business. Not that the results are dry or inaccessible. Far from it. They are frequently an absolute hoot, with our guide’s gift for conversational pizzazz ensuring even the scenes in which he horses around feel fresh and imaginative rather than laboured or gimmicky.”
Sarah Dempster, The Guardian

“Januszczak is a born storyteller, full of cajoling engagement and warm invitation. He is also canny enough to know that with the first subject in this series (art’s most horrific and most satanic are to come), the visuals can do a lot of the heavy lifting, especially when you start in the temples of Khajuraho in India with their array of figures adopting sexual positions one scarcely thought possible.”
Ben Dowell, The Times