Watching the Eras Tour Movie as a Non-Swiftie: A Journey
Taylor Swift: The 33-year-old whose net worth is over one billion dollars, has been writing and singing her own songs since she was 14 years old, and is the center of one of the most defensive, avid fan groups of all time: the Swifties.
I would not consider myself a Swiftie. I know the classics that everyone knows because of their popularity in mainstream media (think “Shake It Off,” “Bad Blood,” “Look What You Made Me Do,” “22”), but that’s about it.
Do I enjoy the music of hers that I’ve heard? Generally yes.
Do I enjoy her music so much that I would listen to all of it religiously, stalk the guys that she is rumored to be in a relationship with, and spend upwards of $500 to see her in concert? No.
I want to make it very clear that I have nothing against Taylor Swift. She is incredibly talented (including songwriting AND singing), and she has donated a lot of her money to charities, especially during her tour. However, I just do not understand all of the obsessive fan behavior surrounding her and her music.
In the attempt to try to better understand the Swiftes, I did what any Swiftie would do. I went to see the Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Movie.
And I’m going to tell you all about my journey: step by step, era by era.
I was not expecting the Taylor Swift movie journey to begin at ticket sales. However, when I went online to purchase my tickets,I was met with these prices:
These are not just surprisingly expensive movie tickets. I recognized the $19.89 as the name of one of Taylor’s albums, and also her birth date. I was not sure of the significance of the $13.13, but I was sure there had to be one. I immediately took to the Swifties, and I posted the prices to my Snapchat story in the hopes one would come along to educate me.
My best Swiftie friend responded.
She told me that Taylor Swift’s favorite number is 13. Makes sense.
When I first arrived at the theater, I was afraid that there would be a lot of Swifties there, and that they would be dressed up in their Taylor-themed outfits.
This would reveal that I was an outsider.
However, since I had made the decision to go at 7:30 pm on a Sunday, there were only about five other people in the theater, and they had not dressed up.
Phew.
The only part of the experience that I did not get pictures of was the previews. I figured that there was no reason to. How could trailers for upcoming movies have anything to do with the Eras Tour movie that I was about to watch?
I was sorely mistaken.
While watching the previews, I noticed that two of them directly referenced the fact that the audience was there to see the Eras Tour movie. Personally, I have never seen something like this before in a theater, except referencing huge franchises, such as Star Wars, Marvel movies, or DC films.
If this movie could be put on the same pedestal as these, I was in for a treat.
The first trailer to mention the movie that I saw was for the “Trolls Band Together” movie, an addition to the Dreamworks film franchise “Trolls.”
The trailer started off with the phrase “Hey Swifties,” which not only threw me off, but caused me to feel even more like an outsider.
The second trailer reference that I saw was for the new “Mean Girls” musical, set to release in January 2024.
It began by saying “We know you’re here for the musical event of the year,” solidifying in my mind how much people are in love with Taylor and this show.
These trailers set the stage perfectly for my Eras Tour movie experience to begin.
The movie began with a countdown to the movie’s beginning:
Although this picture was taken with zero seconds on the clock, it started with 13 seconds. I felt like a real Swiftie remembering it was her favorite number.
After the clock, the official title card for the movie pops up on screen (the cover image for this article), followed by an overhead shot of the sold-out stadium. And then it was go time.
After the introduction came the first “era” of the night: Lover.
I enjoyed this part of the show, mostly because the songs that she performed were so upbeat and easy to sing along to.
I knew most of these songs, the most notable being “You Need to Calm Down” since it was so popular on mainstream radio when it was first released.
The visuals for this era were stunning, and I was surprised at how complex they were. My favorite was:
This house-like structure that they used for “The Man.” I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how they had set this up so quickly, and being amazed at how agile Taylor and the backup dancers seemed to be while performing on it.
I was sure I had heard this song before, although I didn’t know any of the words. It was insanely catchy, and I made sure to add it to my Spotify playlist immediately after the show.
It’s been stuck in my head ever since.
Up next came Fearless.
To be completely honest, Fearless wasn’t very memorable for me.
I don’t remember many of the songs, and the visuals weren’t nearly as complex as the ones used in Lover.
It might be because I spent most of Fearless staring at Taylor’s outfit.
But there were a couple of things that I noticed during this era that persisted throughout the movie.
The first thing that I really started to notice was the insane number of people at this show.
The movie was filmed in the SoFi Stadium in California, with a capacity of about 70,000 people. Taylor mentioned during the show that the event was completely sold out. The thought that 70,000 people had gone to the tour, let alone gone to this single show in Los Angeles, is unfathomable to me.
It shows just how committed the Swifties are to Taylor.
The second thing that I noticed was how happy Taylor’s backup dancers and singers seemed to be as they performed the show with her.
Not just during Fearless, but throughout the rest of the show, the extras all seem to be smiling and laughing along with Taylor, and Taylor seems genuinely happy and thankful to have them.
There has been a lot of recent controversy regarding popular artists and their abusive treatment towards their staff on their tours, so to see Taylor being the complete opposite of that is very refreshing, and only adds to my favorable opinion towards her.
Taylor’s backup dancers were dressed in large black hoods with magical-looking crystal balls in their hands.
The vibes of Evermore were very different from the first two eras. Evermore was slow, and reminded me of a fairytale.
I knew absolutely zero of these songs, but every single one of them was beautifully written. I felt compelled not just to listen to them, but to pay attention to them. Each song was like a story, and I wanted to dissect every one.
This part of the performance reminded me of Little Red Riding Hood, with her outfit and the extras looking like they were performing spells behind her.
Since I have never heard any of these songs, I was completely surprised by the vibes of this era. I was not aware that Taylor’s music had this darker side to it.
A big “argument” that anti-Swifties use to put down Taylor is that all of her music fits under the “preppy” umbrella. I was also under the impression that all of her songs sounded the same before watching the movie.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the variety of music that she sang, and it only added to the respect I have for her as an artist.
Evermore ended with the song “Tolerate It”, which I had never heard before. I thought it was a very good example of a “female rage” song, which I really enjoyed.
However, I couldn’t properly enjoy it because I spent the whole time trying to figure out who this guy with Taylor was. She performed the whole song with him, where he played the neglectful partner and she crawled all over this table to him.
I felt like I was supposed to know who he was. After conferring with some Swifties, I don’t think I was.
I went into the theater knowing that “Reputation” was my favorite album; it is by far my favorite vibe out of all of Taylor’s songs that I have heard. I am a huge fan of the messages of female empowerment throughout the whole album, and the songs are repetitive in a way that makes it very catchy.
My favorite song has to be “Look What You Made Me Do” because of the sharp contrast between it and the typical style of pop in her other albums leading up to it.
I knew it would probably be one of my favorite performances, if not my favorite.
It did not disappoint.
I was in love with the visuals in this era. This one on the stage was probably my favorite. Every step she took, the stage would “crack” a little bit until the whole stage was shattered.
I also really enjoyed this part of the show, where Taylor sang at these people stuck in glass boxes.
The way I interpreted this (without any background knowledge) was that each person represented one of her eras. For example, the woman in red represents her album “Red,” and the girl in the cheerleader uniform represents the cheerleader in the song “You Belong With Me” on the album “Fearless.”
I thought that this concept was very visually appealing and displayed in a very creative way.
The contrast between the sharp, blunt Reputation era and the soft, slow-burn era of Speak Now was a very interesting choice, one that I thought really embodied the purpose of the tour, which Taylor has stated is to represent how she has had the opportunity to change her style of music throughout the years
There was only one song on the set-list for Speak Now, and it was “Enchanted.”
Although I have never listened to the song in its entirety, I have heard snippets of it through Tik Tok. I enjoyed little I had heard of it; its soft and innocent lyrics and vibe of soft elegance really stood out to me.
I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the rest of the song holds up.
Once again, Taylor’s outfit was stunning during this era. It perfectly embodied those soft and sweet vibes that I was picking up, and she looked just like a princess.
I enjoyed a lot of the visuals from the Red era, especially from the performance of “22” which looked exactly like how it did in the iconic music video.
This era marked the return of the backup dancers, as the songs returned to a more upbeat pop style. Again, the dancers seemed to be having so much fun dancing around the stage and acting out the lyrics, and it made for a much more engaging show.
This also marked the era where Taylor gives her 22 hat to a lucky audience member.
I knew about this tradition via clips on social media, and I am a huge fan of the sentiment. Imagining one of my greatest idols giving ME a hat and then hugging ME out of the entire audience gives me an amazing feeling.
This just adds even more to the list of ways Taylor positively engages with her fans, which is incredibly admirable to see in an artist.
My feelings on this part of the movie are very mixed. There were elements of the performance that I really enjoyed, and elements that I didn’t.
First: the fantastic set design
I was again very impressed by the theming in this set design. The “Folklore” album is very woodsy and make-believe, and this gorgeous cabin set with the overgrown plants and warm lighting on the interior just embodies that so perfectly.
Second: The vibe of the songs in a concert setting
The only thing that I didn’t enjoy about the Folklore era was how the songs didn’t fit into the vibe of a concert.
To be completely clear: I enjoyed the songs. I told a Swiftie friend of mine that I didn’t really enjoy the Folklore part of the movie, and she immediately told me that I have “horrible taste” and that I “suck.”
When I say that I don’t think they fit in very well to the rest of the movie, I don’t think that it is because they are bad songs. I say this because they were slower, and relied on their story-telling aspect rather than a catchy chorus like most of the other songs in the movie. The performance was also much more static; there wasn’t much movement, changes in lighting, or dancing until the very end of the era.
I may be partially biased towards “1989,” as it is the album of Taylor’s that I grew up listening to. I was about seven years old when this album was released, and spent a lot of time listening to its songs on my mom’s iPod.
After Folklore, this era was a complete 180 in terms of the general vibe and mood of the stadium. The audience was back to singing and dancing along to the music, and so was Taylor.
The stage was incredibly dynamic during this era. Podiums rose from the floor for Taylor to stand on, beam lights lit up the whole stadium, and the backup dancers pranced around the stage with props in hand.
Taylor’s outfit during this era was everything.
Being Taylor’s most recent studio album, Midnights was the perfect era to end on.
I had heard some of the songs from the album being played on the radio, but she also performed a lot of songs that haven’t been as popular, such as “Mastermind” and “Vigilante sh*t.”
This era was definitely the most versatile of the eras in terms of performances. Some were typical of the rest of the show, some were more provocative in nature, and some were more symbolic.
All of them were masterfully choreographed and executed.
The lighting, projections, and props on the stage during “Lavender Haze” perfectly matched the song, along with being very aesthetically pleasing.
The audience’s wristbands also turned lavender during the performance, which only added to the overall ambiance.
With the ending of Midnights comes the end of the movie. In Taylor’s end-of-show speech, she makes sure to thank the audience for supporting her, as well as the band, backup dancers, vocalists, and crew for helping run the show.
After the credits rolled, this fan appreciation message was given on friendship bracelets. When I tried to ask my Swiftie friend what the significance of this is, I did not understand her answer.
I must be too uncultured for that.
However, I really appreciate the message. There has also been controversy in the entertainment industry surrounding artists not appreciating (and even disliking) their own fans. I greatly admire it when artists take the time to appreciate their own fans, and recognize the fact that they would not have a career if it wasn’t for their supporters.
To be honest, going into this project I didn’t think I would enjoy the movie itself much. I thought that there was no way that watching a roughly three-hour concert performed by an artist who I am not familiar with would be anything but boring.
However, I was very surprised by how much I enjoyed the experience. Not only was the production value of the movie fantastic, or Taylor and her crew’s performance thoroughly practiced and smooth, but seeing her fans becoming so emotional by the show was a really moving part of the experience.
Seeing fans be brought to tears watching one of their favorite artists perform–it is hard not to feel the same way yourself.
Did this experience turn me into a Swiftie? No.
Did this experience help me understand the appeal of Taylor Swift and her music? Yes.
Through this tour, I was quite literally taken on a journey through Taylor’s eras. I was able to see how she has grown as a person and as an artist, and I was exposed to music that I have never heard before, some of which I very much enjoyed.
It is safe to say that I have grown to appreciate Taylor Swift much more after watching the Eras Tour movie, and to all the Swifties out there: I may not be one of you, but I get you.
My opinion was definitely not affected by my Swiftie friend who said she would hate me if I said anything bad about Taylor Swift. I promise.
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