Fin: She’s cheer captain, they’re on the bleachers

The week Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift made America’s worst people lose their damned minds. Plus: The final fall of Mr. McMahon, Jewface gets nominated, and film critic takes from Tablet and Yglesias

When Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce first started publicly dating toward the beginning of the NFL season, it was naturally a subject of fascination, as is typically the case when two super-famous people start dating each other. But over recent months, it’s become something much uglier, driven by the sort of dudes who got it in their head at age 10 or 11 that they’re supposed to reflexively hate anything girly, and have carried that attitude well into adulthood.

The first hints at a backlash to Travis and Taylor started the way it normally does, with the familiar sportswriter bullshit about dating famous women serving as a “distraction,” and that she’s going to “ruin” him. We’ve been through this song and dance every single time a famous sports figure has dated a female celebrity; it happened with Madonna across multiple generations of athletes (Jose Canseco! Dennis Rodman! Alex Rodriguez!), along with the long list of basketball players who dated various members of the Kardashian family. And who could forget Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson’s bye-week adventures in Mexico in 2007? (Isn’t going on vacation what you’re supposed to do during a bye week?) 

This never really made much sense; why would dating a famous woman be that much more of a distraction than just dating a non-famous one? There was, as usual, a bit of sexism baked in, along with occasion grumblings that Taylor was taking up too much space on game broadcasts. (Typically, at most, a minute or two during a three-hour game.) 

Then, when the Chiefs and Kelce himself had a bit of a late-season swoon, the storyline became that the “distraction” theory had manifested itself, with Outkick dipshit Clay Travis, among others, even comparing Swift to Yoko Ono. But then the Chiefs went on a run, including Kelce scoring a bunch of touchdowns in the process of delivering the team to another Super Bowl. So the line went back to “I’m sick of Taylor! Why do they have to keep showing her on TV?” 

At any rate, I have yet to hear anyone persuasively articulate why it’s bad for Taylor Swift to go to football games, or for the networks to show her on TV when she does. 

What’s happened since Sunday, though, is a freakout like few things I’ve ever seen. This has included the widespread emergence, on the political right, of an elaborate conspiracy theory in which the Taylor/Travis relationship is a “psyop,” carried out by everyone from the Pentagon to the CIA to Pfizer to that’s right, George Soros. In an era when the go-to move in some precincts of the right is just to call everyone they don’t like a pedophile or a demon, this is somehow a new level of fact-free nonsense.  

A typical version comes from right-wing hack and serial plagiarist Benny Johnson:

To believe in this conspiracy requires one to not know anything about politics, football, the government, or how any of them work, as well as a dramatic misreading of Swift’s well-publicized masters dispute, which had the peripheral involvement (on the opposite side!) of Soros’ son. And I guess Kelce is an “agent” of Pfizer and Bud Light in the way that Rob Gronkowski is an “agent” of FanDuel and USAA insurance. (The Kick of Destiny is a psyop!)

 Fox News, numerous big-name conservative influencers, and even recent presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy have told their large audiences that Swift and Kelce are part of a nefarious conspiracy, and in some cases that the Super Bowl itself will be “rigged,” or maybe that it’s all orchestrated for the happy couple to endorse Joe Biden for president, possibly during halftime. That there’s not a scintilla of truth to any of this, or that it’s all repellant, weirdo behavior, doesn’t seem to be slowing the train down. 

On top of everything else, even Donald Trump has supposedly declared “holy war” on Swift. Which should disabuse anyone of the notion that the 45th president is a savvy political operator. 

Many have pointed out that the football star’s romance with the pretty girl who he kisses after the game is the stuff of pure conservative Americana, the sort of stuff you would think right-wing people would find positive. Responding instead with such mean-spirited horseshit is just such political and cultural malpractice. 

America is probably the most fragmented it’s ever been, but there are just two pillars of the monoculture remaining: The NFL, and Taylor Swift, who have come together with both, to a measurable degree, delivering fans to the other. So why not alienate both at once? Both of them bring larger crowds to larger venues than Donald Trump could ever dream of drawing, as Trump has never filled an NFL stadium for one of his speeches (Barack Obama has, though!) 

And finally, because This is a Movie Newsletter… 

The question has often been asked- why the freakout about Taylor when big celebrities appear at NFL games all the time? There was a short stretch in the 2010 season when Prince went to every Vikings game. Both Detroit Lions home playoff games were attended by virtually every single famous person who is from Detroit, and that was also the case with Philly celebs when the Eagles marched to the Super Bowl back in 2018. Jack Tapper went, as did Mac from Always Sunny, Kevin Hart tried to insinuate himself into the championship celebration, and Bradley Cooper sat in the owner’s box and celebrated. 

On a group text last week someone joked- what if Bradley Cooper (or one of those other male celebs) had a boyfriend who played for the Eagles? 

Then I remembered- there is a movie, 2010’s Valentine’s Day, in which the twist is that Cooper’s character is gay, and his boyfriend (Eric Dane) is an NFL quarterback. The QB’s name was even “Sean Jackson,” one syllable off from Desean Jackson, the guy whose jersey Bradley wore throughout Silver Linings Playbook. 

Also in that Valentine’s Day movie, making her film debut? You guessed it, Taylor Swift.