{"id":191961,"date":"2025-10-05T17:59:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T17:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/191961\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T17:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T17:59:07","slug":"the-release-party-of-a-showgirl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/191961\/","title":{"rendered":"The Release Party of a Showgirl’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cTaylor Swift<\/a>: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl\u201d has begun unspooling in cinemas nationwide for its limited three-day engagement, and the theatrical event\u2019s behind-the-scenes footage and personal commentary from Swift are giving fans more insight into the hit album it\u2019s promoting.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe hour-and-a-half program (presented in theaters with no trailers or other preliminaries) begins with Swift offering a brief introduction and thanks, then goes straight into the premiere of the elaborate music video for \u201cThe Life of Ophelia,\u201d followed by behind-the-scenes footage of the making of the Swift-directed video. Most of the rest of the 90 minutes consists of semi-static lyric videos for the other 11 tracks from the \u201cLife of a Showgirl\u201d album, preceded by Swift offering two or three minutes of commentary about the inspiration for the songwriting in each instance. <\/p>\n

\n\tMore BTS footage from the \u201cOphelia\u201d shoot is scattered throughout the program, which ends with a reprise of the opening video \u2014 with viewers now having more insight into where to look for fun moments that will have gone overlooked on first viewing. (The repeat showing of the music video at the close is also handy for any latecomers to the theater who didn\u2019t believe the part about there being no trailers.)<\/p>\n

\n\tDiscussing the \u201cOphelia\u201d video, Swift says, \u201cThe idea I came up with for this music video was sort of a journey throughout all these different ways in which over time periods, historically, you could be a showgirl\u2026 Like, how you would be in the public eye back during the 1800s, when you\u2019d sit for a Pre-Raphaelite painting. Or you could be a showgirl by being a cabaret burlesque club performer. You could be a theatrical actor putting on a performance. You could a Vegas showgirl. You could be one of the girls in the Busby Berkeley screen-siren era of the \u201830s and \u201840s. You could be a pop singer on the Eras Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed, the time-tripping allows the star to take on several different personas, including a classic showgirl with a Marilyn-Monroe-platinum bob hairdo, a \u201960s-style brunette go-go dancer in a nightclub, an Esther Williams-like bathing beauty on a movie set with a giant staircase and a cast of dozens, and a raven-haired theatrical actress. All of these different looks show up later in the lyric videos, via brief video loops that run behind the giant-sized lyric excerpts.<\/p>\n

\n\tSerious Swifties will enjoy the music video, and especially the copious behind-the-scenes footage, for the many familiar faces that populate these scenes. One of the reasons for her excitement in sharing all this, she says, is that \u201cis that we got everybody back together from the Eras Tour; all of the performers that you saw on that stage are back in this music video, as well as so many of the people who worked behind the scenes to create the Eras Tour.\u201d That includes everyone from the dancers to production designer Ethan Tobman and choreographer Mandy Moore.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s not a big spoiler to say that the music video ends with a recreation of the album cover image of Swift mostly submerged in a tub in full glam attire. What many fans may not know is that this was all borrowed from a classic painting. <\/p>\n

\n\tFor the denouement of the \u201cOphelia\u201d video, she \u201cwanted to match the framing ideally to the album cover and kind of just frame it exactly like that, so that people are like, \u2018Oh, so the cover is a reference to the Ophelia painting, and this ending is a reference to the cover.\u2019 So, art history for pop fans!\u201d The painting she\u2019s referring to is a circa-1850 painting of the Shakespearian character Ophelia by British artist Sir\u00a0John Everett Malais, which portrays the doomed woman floating and singing in the water before she drowns herself, as described by Gertrude but not directly portrayed in \u201cHamlet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOphelia drowned because Hamlet just messed with her head so much that she went crazy and she couldn\u2019t take it anymore, and all these men were just gaslighting her until she drowned,\u201d Swift explains. But in her version, \u201cwhat if the hook is that you saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia? Like. basically you are the reason why I didn\u2019t end up like this, tragic, poetic hero girl, who passed away in a fictional world?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAdmitting that it might sound like \u201ca stupid thing to say,\u201d Swift goes ahead and declares: \u201cI love Shakespeare\u2026 It holds up. It\u2019s actually not overhyped! And I love those tragedies so much. I fall in love with those characters so much that it hurts me that they die. \u2026 This is now the second song where I\u2019ve gone back in and (am) like, \u2018Yo, what if they got married instead of they die?’\u201d (The other one she\u2019s referring to is, of course, \u201cLove Story,\u201d which lets Romeo and Juliet off the hook.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s deeper meaning to some of the other imagery in the music video than might first be intuited by viewers. For instance, that classic movie-musical scene in which she and all the dancers are wearing bathing caps and carrying life preservers\u2026 it celebrates the famously swimming movie star Esther Williams, cineastes will now, but it\u2019s also, yes, an Ophelia reference. \u201cRight now we are sitting on the set of what we\u2019re kind of calling our Busby Berkeley-inspired, MGM, screen queen 1930s and \u201840s\u201d motif, she says, \u201cand we\u2019ve got it looking kind of a little bit like a beach\/swim\/pool thing. And that\u2019s a play on Ophelia.\u201d The character drowned herself, as previously noted, but in that movie-musical homage, \u201cwe\u2019ve got these lifesaving devices, which could have prevented that from happening,\u201d she points out, with tongue firmly in cheek.<\/p>\n

\n\tViewers also learn, in the behind-the-scenes footage, how a certain very handsome bread came to make a cameo. \u201cOh, I can bake the bread\u2026 Can it be my bread? Can my bread be in the music video?\u201d The next day, she is delighted to add her impressive part to the set design. \u201cThis is a really exciting day for me as a baker because my bread is actually a music video star as of today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne point that comes up as the dancers learn their choreography: \u201cThe Fate of Ophelia\u201d was not actually played on-set, to avoid leaks. And so the dancers required extra direction because of that. \u201cWe\u2019re in secret sauce. No one\u2019s hearing this track. All anyone\u2019s hearing in the room is just click. So I also have to be able to inform the dancers, \u2018You need to feel this in this moment.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the song explanations proceed, she brings clarity to what has quickly emerged as a fan-favorite song, \u201cOpalite,\u201d and explains the two color distinctions that would be lost on most listeners without her spelling it out.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOpalite is manmade opal. I\u2019ve always loved opal; my mom has always loved opal; it\u2019s kind of like our thing \u2014 one of our many things,\u201d Swift says. \u201cAnd I loved the metaphor of a manmade opal (as) you had to make your own happiness in your life. You had to get yourself through some difficult times to get to the positive place you\u2019re in now. And I really loved the idea that the manmade gemstone jewel is also a metaphor for choosing your own path to happiness\u2026 It didn\u2019t just happen to you. You had to fight for it. You had to work for it. You had to earn it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSwift has been highly reluctant to discuss who her songs are about, going back at least to her second album, so she isn\u2019t about to break form with that now and discuss the real-life figures whom Swifties believe are addressed in the diss tracks \u201cFather Figure\u201d and \u201cActually Romantic.\u201d But she does lend context to her thinking about those tunes.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe singer says her basic love for alliteration is why she was drawn to George Michael\u2019s \u201cFather Figure,\u201d which is the one interpolation on the album, in her new composition of the same name. She felt there was room to work it because \u201cthat line in the context of the George Michael song is romantic,\u201d but \u201cI always thought it could be cool to use the line \u2018I\u2019ll be your father figure\u2019 as a creative writing prompt and turn it into a story about power, and a story about a young ingenue and their mentor and the way that that relationship can change over time\u2026 and betrayal and wit and cunning and cleverness and strategy. Essentially it ends up in a \u2018who\u2019s gonna win\u2019 situation \u2014 who\u2019s gonna gonna outfox the other?\u201d She doesn\u2019t fully address the change of perspective that happens midway through the lyrics, but says \u201cI can relate to both characters in certain parts of the song.\u201c<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for \u201cActually Romantic,\u201d which is the talk of the pop-culture internet this weekend because of how it appears to be an answer song to a track Charli XCX put out last year, she describes it \u201cas sort of a love letter to someone who hates you. Sometimes you don\u2019t know that you are a part of someone else\u2019s story, but you are. And then kind of there can be this moment where it\u2019s unveiled to you through things that they do that are very overt.\u201d As she\u2019s gotten older, she adds, \u201cI\u2019ve just started to be like, \u2018Oh my God\u2026 you did so much with this\u2026 it\u2019s flattering. I don\u2019t hate you and I don\u2019t think about this, but thank you for all the effort, honestly. Wow. That is very sweet of you to think about me this much, even if it\u2019s negative. Like, in my industry, attention is affection, and you\u2019ve given me a whole lot of it, so\u2026\u201d She then blows the camera a kiss.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe also gets into the impetus for \u201cCancelled!,\u201d saying she \u201cwanted to write a song about how you can become wiser for it and how you can become sharper \u2026 I definitely judge people a lot less now that I\u2019ve been under the microscope for so long. I just judge people based on who I know to be their actions, not some sort of general consensus where people are like, \u2018Step away, they\u2019re radioactive.\u2019 I\u2019m just like: not gonna do that. I\u2019m gonna do that if somebody proves that they\u2019re not a good person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSabrina Carpenter does not appear anywhere in this theatrical program, except for a film clip of a duet during the Eras Tour. But Swift has plenty to say about bringing her on for the album\u2019s sole duet, on the title track.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe finished writing it and I was like, \u2018I want Sabrina to sing on this so bad\u2019 \u2026 She\u2019s well-equipped for this career. She is so good at moving through backlash or criticism or people being unfair to her or picking her apart. She has the temperament to pivot and use it as fuel. \u2026 I really feel like she\u2019s got the same mentality as what this song (is) about: having a love for the game that overrides how hard this can be. And she was like, \u2018Are you kidding? I\u2019m dead. Yes, of course.\u2019 \u2026. And then when she was on tour in Sweden, she took her days off and went and recorded it, and that is a showgirl for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThose producing the \u201crelease party\u201d and distributing it have pointedly avoided calling it a \u201cfilm\u201d \u2014 but it is certainly being counted as one for the purposes of box office receipts. \u201cShowgirl\u201d is expected without question to come out on top of the weekend\u2019s grosses, even as the album itself is poised to break records for streaming and sales in 2025, based on first-day results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cTaylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl\u201d has begun unspooling in cinemas nationwide for its limited…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136,2897,103600,51383],"class_list":{"0":"post-191961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-taylor-swift","13":"tag-taylor-swift-the-official-release-party-of-a-showgirl","14":"tag-the-life-of-a-showgirl"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}