The Life of a Trainwreck: How Taylor Swift Vindicates the «Bad Woman» Narrative since reputation (2017)

Once celebrated as «America’s sweetheart», Taylor Swift suffered severe damage to her public image following her 2016 feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. In her return to music and public life with reputation (2017), Swift confronted this vilification and transformed it into a site of self-reclamation. This article contributes to «Swift studies» by providing a detailed examination of her engagement with the «bad woman» trope from reputation (2017) to THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT (2024). While the expression «in my reputation era» has come to signal personal empowerment through «bad» – or assertive – behaviour, the trope remains far from central in Swift’s work, functioning instead as a recurring device to navigate public scrutiny and vilification. Close readings of eleven selected tracks reveal its intermittent presence and narrative evolution: from reactive and abstract depictions in reputation to more disruptive articulations, including instances of feral conduct and acts of murder. While these representations are disruptive, Swift relies on fantasies of «bad women» rather than fully transgressive conduct, a limitation shaped by her moderate positions in terms of performance, marketing, and ideology. Part of a lineage of vilified women artists, including Britney Spears, Whitney Houston, and Amy Winehouse, Swift’s use of the trope resonates with a cultural landscape increasingly receptive to feminist vindications of long-standing denigrating narratives. Yet, by foregrounding the tension between her narrative use of the «bad woman» and her embodied engagement, the article demonstrates how the trope’s force is only partially realised – such is the life of a trainwreck in Taylor Swift’s music.