Latest / gasp! the pod / friend of dorothea & karma theories UNPACKED

Transcript

friend of dorothea & karma theories UNPACKED · gasp! the pod

0:00
She's like literally in this black and white Kansas world,
0:04
she needs to go to Oz and scream in color.
0:17
Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Gasp the pod,
0:23
the podcast for the girls, the gays and especially the gay
0:26
girls. OK, if I'm like smiling and
0:28
looking like 2 feet off the eyeline, it's because my
0:32
girlfriend is here, Sophia listening and watching because
0:36
she wanted to learn about what we have to talk about today,
0:39
right? Pretty much we're going to be
0:41
talking about how the heirs who are is ending obviously, and my
0:44
big prediction, which obviously a lot of other gaylors share,
0:48
which is the karma theory coupled with the Friend of
0:52
Dorothy theory. So we're going to cover a lot
0:55
and I have literally like 6 pages of notes.
0:58
Hopefully we can get it done in one episode.
1:01
If for some reason you finished the episode and I haven't talked
1:04
about like Friend of Dorothy, it's 'cause it's going to be in
1:07
another episode 'cause I guess we've been talking so long,
1:09
which is a possibility. So yeah, we're going to be
1:12
talking about karma and the Friend of Dorothy theory.
1:14
If you're not watching on video, I'm wearing like a, I'm trying
1:18
to kind of symbolize the yellow brick road vibes 'cause I'm
1:21
wearing this yellowish shirt. And then I was thinking these
1:26
pants, if you can't see, they're kind of like the colors of what
1:30
we assume karma's gonna be, which is like a Plaid yellow.
1:35
Wait, not yellow, orange, pink, white.
1:39
Lesbian flag colors. OK, so the era sewer is ending.
1:45
The era sewer is going to end December 8th.
1:48
That is interestingly enough like 5 days before Taylor
1:54
Swift's birthday, which is December 13th, 2024, which is
1:59
also going to be Friday the 13th.
2:01
And as we know 13 super important number for her.
2:04
I think something is going to be released that 13th and I think
2:09
she's going to announce it the Friday of her Vancouver shows.
2:13
More specifically, I think she's going to announce karma.
2:16
So we'll get into the karma theory 1st.
2:19
And I also just wanted to add, there's a lot of these theories
2:23
that are kind of like, I don't really view them as separate and
2:26
competing. I view them as like
2:28
interconnecting and they could kind of all be accurate.
2:32
I think that Taylor Swift Easter eggs through a lot of different
2:36
metaphors and themes, like Emily Dickinson, like Wizard of Oz,
2:42
Cinderella, and like old fairy tales, like there's a lot of
2:46
things that she pulls references from.
2:48
So I don't think that there's like one true theory.
2:51
But I do think specifically, she's been flagging Wizard of Oz
2:56
a lot recently. And karma I think is going to
3:01
happen. And if it doesn't, I'm going to
3:02
be so pissed. This is the longest tour of her
3:05
life. She's been touring for a year
3:07
and nine months, and she's been touring all of her different
3:11
eras. As we know.
3:12
There's another theory that kind of goes into this, which is a
3:15
performance art lore theory, which is that she's performing
3:20
these different faces of herself and these different eras of her
3:24
own life. But none of it, none of them are
3:27
like her true self and that we're going to like meet the
3:30
real her after this is all over. Which I do think is also
3:35
interesting that meet me at midnight 12 AKA December is like
3:42
midnight. I think it would make sense that
3:44
we might meet her at midnight. But I'll go into this theory
3:47
probably in next episode, the week right before her last shows
3:52
which I can't even, I can't even accept that.
3:55
And the only reason I'm like doing OK with an ending is this
3:59
anticipation of hopefully something amazing happening at
4:02
the end of it. She also re released most of her
4:05
albums but not all of them. The question is why?
4:09
And does this mean something? A lot of people are saying that
4:12
she's leaving her Debut and Reputation left because what's
4:16
left after all of this is her name Debut and her Reputation,
4:20
which I think is compelling, but I'm not really sure.
4:23
I think the reason why she hasn't released her reputation
4:26
yet is that the songs from the vault on Reputation are so gay
4:32
that she has to come out before she releases them.
4:34
I don't know, that just makes sense to me.
4:37
I don't know about Debut. I feel like she forgot Debut
4:39
ever existed. Let's really get into the karma
4:43
theory and just like literally all the Easter eggs that I feel
4:48
like have ever occurred about it, my predictions, the story of
4:52
Karma and just kind of like like the history of karma, right?
4:56
Karma is supposedly the album between 1989 and Reputation.
5:01
If you're familiar with her old pattern, kind of up until like
5:06
1989 ish, she would release an album every two years.
5:11
And what happened in 2016 was that she didn't release an
5:14
album. Now obviously a lot of people
5:16
say, OK, this is because of like the Kanye and the Kimye
5:20
situation or whatever. Or is it because of something
5:23
larger, which is that she couldn't release the album that
5:27
she was like intending to release in 2016 because 1989
5:32
came out in 2014, 2016 we didn't get an album.
5:36
So the theory goes that Karma was this album that was supposed
5:40
to be released in 2016 and for some reason she couldn't end up
5:44
releasing it, most likely due to her management or this like fear
5:49
that she was going to lose fans if it was a queer album,
5:52
etcetera, etcetera. This album's theory and vibes,
5:56
you know how every era she's a very distinct aesthetic going
5:59
on. The aesthetic that's kind of
6:02
surrounding Karma, which is this like 2015 into 2016 time period
6:08
was her Blichella era. And this like really like almost
6:13
grunge vibe. She was wearing Plaid a lot and
6:18
she like went to Coachella. Like dude, it's interesting that
6:20
she had this very distinct aesthetic that was never
6:24
captured in any album of hers. Reputation was like obviously
6:29
very black and white, like mad. Like had a lot of beat to it,
6:36
like Revenge album, which we love, but it's not the same
6:40
thing of this very distinct, like bleached short hair.
6:45
Like we never saw that come up in like a music video, which is
6:48
just kind of random. Umm.
6:50
Now how we associate karma is like orange aesthetic with
6:55
flames. This idea that she's going to
6:57
maybe like burn everything down and that's why the album is
7:01
orange. Maybe she needs to burn down the
7:03
Lover house to be able to release Karma.
7:08
These are all things that are like associated with Karma.
7:11
The other question is maybe this album wasn't even like meant to
7:14
be called Karma. Like it might have been like an
7:17
album that she was going to release during her Bleachella
7:19
era and then only started like talking about it as Karma once
7:22
she was not able to release it and then kind of like gave it
7:25
another aesthetic as it kind of turned sour.
7:28
That's a theory that I kind of have is that it turned into this
7:32
revenge album because she's saying like, I couldn't release
7:35
it, so now you're all going to get karma and I'm going to
7:38
release karma. The karma is the karma.
7:41
Like your karma is going to be through me releasing karma.
7:45
You know what I mean? This is also the time that she
7:47
was most likely dating Karlie Kloss. 20/15/2016 was like the
7:53
heat of it all when they were like spotted so many so many
7:56
times together. Also when they were spotted
7:59
kissing at the 1975 concert that was in 2015 and then they like
8:04
went to that Drake party and they had the golden tattoos on
8:07
each other. They were like kissing each
8:08
other on cheeks like they did trips together.
8:11
Like this is peak Kaler. So it kind of would make sense
8:15
that this album would be like mostly Karlie Kloss inspired and
8:21
another big reason of like why maybe able to be released.
8:26
Let's also remember before anyone's like why couldn't she
8:29
release a gay album? She was the most famous person
8:31
in the world. She was not the most famous
8:33
person in the world at this time and she had only just had like
8:38
an actual like best selling album from like 1989.
8:43
She was obviously very famous, but not until 1989 was she able
8:47
to like kind of expand out of country.
8:49
Her brand could have been like, we cannot risk like this
8:52
newfound fame that you've gotten.
8:55
Oh, and gay marriage was only just legalized in 2015.
9:01
So it's not the craziest thing that her management was like,
9:06
maybe don't be gay. I mean, obviously it's, it's
9:08
like fucked up, but it's not like crazy that someone would do
9:12
that right before or after gay marriage was literally legalized
9:17
in the US. So for all the young UNS out
9:21
there that are like, Oh my God, it's so normal to be gay.
9:23
It like literally has not been normal for that long and it kind
9:27
of isn't still. She was also under a big machine
9:29
at this time who later screwed her over, so it also won't be
9:32
surprising if they refused to let her release it.
9:36
The question is, is karma buried?
9:38
Is it in the grave and when she talks about like digging up the
9:41
grave, something still laying in the grave or something in the
9:45
vault, is it the vault tracks or is it this album that has
9:49
literally not been released yet because it's in the grave?
9:52
I know sometimes when we talk about in the grave, people think
9:54
like the Karlie Kloss relationship.
9:56
I think that could also be coupled with Karma, also Karma
10:00
Carr. Karlie Kloss's nickname is Carr.
10:04
A lot of people call her Carr. She also talks about Carr a lot.
10:08
Buy the car you want, I slur your name till someone puts me
10:12
in the car. So like it's not the craziest
10:14
thing that she'd be also calling the album Karma for Carly and
10:19
car is like her nickname. So there's another Easter egg.
10:21
That question of why it wasn't released is also coupled with
10:26
the fact that Karlie Kloss's manager was Scooter Braun at the
10:30
time. Scooter, who we know fucking
10:32
sucks for so many reasons, is also like a homophobe.
10:36
And also, it's not just Taylor Swift's reputation at stake,
10:39
it's also Curly Kloss's. So they both have to agree to be
10:43
kind of together in this moment because if Taylor Swift comes
10:46
out, Karlie Kloss is kind of like pushed with that O was it
10:51
Scooter Braun that was trying to protect her image?
10:53
Was there like this detailed contract that needed to be
10:55
signed by both parties? Like, we don't really know, but
10:58
there's a lot of forces in the way of releasing a queer album.
11:03
In 2015, 2016, Taylor Swift had hated Scooter Braun.
11:06
Is this because he had like thwarted this album?
11:11
And when Taylor Swift talks about how being so mad that
11:13
Scott sold her masters to Scooter, is that the underlying
11:18
reason of why she hates Scooter Braun so much because she he
11:21
prevented her from coming out? We don't know.
11:25
So the question is, was Lover her first attempt at coming out
11:29
or was it actually Karma? And was lover her second attempt
11:34
and then that was thwarted by the masters being sold and is
11:38
Karma now third attempt? That would be interesting
11:43
because exile is supposed to end in 321.
11:46
Maybe this is her third time and 3rd time's the charm that she's
11:50
trying to come out because it's literally been thwarted like so
11:53
many times. And then this is kind of going
11:55
back to what I was saying about if Karma is not actually was not
11:59
actually originally named Karma, maybe it was named Karma to get
12:03
back at Big Machine and Scooter for what they did.
12:05
And Taylor's saying like, Karma's going to take its course
12:08
no matter how long it takes. So another reason why people
12:11
think Karma's coming next. And when we first saw the heirs
12:14
tour begin and we're like looking at all these Easter
12:16
eggs, one of the big things is that an orange door drops down
12:20
at the end of the heirs to her. And is this like a signal for
12:24
her to exit through Karma when the heirs to her ends?
12:28
Maybe she exits out of this door theory kind of goes with this
12:33
performance Artler theory as well.
12:35
That when Taylor stops performing her straight Miss
12:39
Americana era, which is pretty much her performing all of her
12:42
eras. And the one thing that all of
12:45
her eras have in common is that like she's still trying to be
12:49
this like Miss Americana image, even reputation.
12:51
It stays within certain lines, right?
12:55
She's going to make sure everyone receives their karma
12:59
and come out by burning all of them down.
13:02
And all of these eras are still under the lover house.
13:05
So that's the lover theory combined with this theory that
13:09
I'll get into later. OK, so let's get into the
13:13
specific karma, karma Easter eggs and evidence.
13:17
I've already kind of talked about the like general theory
13:20
and I know it's like there's so many little interconnecting
13:24
aspects of the theory, but it's pretty much just being like,
13:27
fuck all of you guys, I'm coming out.
13:28
So here's the evidence kind of in like chronological order.
13:33
I'm sure I'm missing some because she's insane and she
13:36
puts so many Easter eggs, but these are kind of like the main
13:39
ones. So in April 2016, she did a
13:42
Vogue 73 questions interview and one of the questions they asked
13:46
her was what do you think is the most important life lesson for
13:49
someone to learn? And she says karma, that karma's
13:52
real, which is just kind of a very specific thing to say.
13:57
And this is in 2016. That could have been like right
14:00
around the time that this album was thwarted.
14:03
And she had to kind of like switch gears into Reputation and
14:06
find another way to like make an angry album that wasn't as queer
14:09
coded. And by the way, as we all know,
14:12
Reputation is extremely queer coded.
14:16
So it's just kind of insane to imagine like what karma could
14:20
hold, like if it's gayer than reputation.
14:25
Kind of segueing into reputation in August 2017 and the Look What
14:29
You Made Me Do music video. She wears an orange outfit
14:33
swinging in a cage, which kind of signifying that like this
14:37
era, this orange era, is like trapped.
14:39
And this is kind of the first time that we see orange coupled
14:43
with karma. So we start to think like, OK,
14:47
wait, what is this orange era? We haven't seen it before.
14:50
Maybe this is karma. And it's just kind of like the
14:54
metaphor that Karma is trapped and can't get out because Orange
14:57
Tailor is outside the plane at the end and she's like standing
15:01
there like painting over the plane that says TS6.
15:06
And then she paints over reputation.
15:09
So there were theories at the time being like, wait, is this
15:13
not TS 6? Was TS6 actually supposed to be
15:17
Karma or whatever like Orange Taylor this era represents?
15:21
Because as you know, lining up in front of the plane in in the
15:25
reputation or look what you made me do music video, there's all
15:29
these like distinct eras, but we're like, who is this Orange
15:32
Taylor? There's also a scene of her
15:35
standing in front of a vault with like a bat and she's trying
15:38
to like break open this vault. I know that now a lot of
15:41
mainstream Swifties will be like, oh, she's just trying to
15:43
like break open like from the vault songs.
15:45
It's like really? Or is it like something larger
15:47
than this is Look what you made me do actually just a song for
15:51
like Kanye West? Or is she mad at like her
15:55
management? Is she mad at like Scott
15:58
Borchetta? Is she mad at like Scooter Braun
16:01
pre emptively that she's have no idea how much Scooter Braun's
16:04
going to fuck over her life, but that they're stopping her from
16:08
doing something And she's like, she literally says the world
16:12
moves on. Another day, another drama, but
16:13
not for me, not for me. All I think about is Karma and
16:17
it's just like the the amount of times that she references Karma
16:21
is beyond just her being like, oh, you guys are all going to
16:25
get Karma. It's like all she's thinking
16:29
about is how much they screwed her over and she can't release
16:33
the album. Karma.
16:35
She says the world moves on. But one thing's for sure, maybe
16:38
I got mine, but you'll all get yours.
16:41
When I first heard this song, I remember thinking like, wait,
16:44
where? When's the revenge going to
16:45
happen? Like obviously the whole album
16:48
is revenge, but it seems like a threat.
16:50
It's more than just, oh, this is your karma right now.
16:54
It's like you're all going to get your karma.
16:58
And it feels like something she's like plotting and
17:00
planning. And as we know, she's fucking
17:03
insane. And I think she said this on a
17:05
late night show. She was like, can I plan
17:07
something three years in advance?
17:09
I think I'm going to try to plan something three years in
17:11
advance. I do believe that was three
17:14
years ago, was it? So that was in 2022.
17:18
So she could mean that she's plotting something for 2025.
17:23
She's crazy. OK, then the first time we see
17:27
like karma written out as a real like, full Easter egg is in 2019
17:33
during the Man Music video. Karma is written twice on that
17:37
wall, once in black and one in orange.
17:41
And I feel like the black one is trying to like show the one from
17:46
Midnights and the Karma one is written in orange.
17:51
So now it's solidifying. OK, these orange aesthetics
17:54
we've seen are for karma. Karma is orange.
17:57
And it's not just once, it's twice, which tracks because then
18:01
in Midnight's, she releases the Karma track during Midnight's
18:05
Mayhem with Me, which I think is kind of funny because it's just
18:08
like re like showing these symbols of like me at midnight,
18:13
Midnight's with me. Ridiculous, but Taylor announces
18:16
Karma as a song on Midnights and then she like, laughs in a very
18:20
sinister way that very much shows that she's like aware of
18:23
the Karma theory. Karma is also track 11 and
18:28
Taylor loves adding things up into numbers, so 1 + 1 = 2 AKA 2
18:33
versions of Karma, a song and an album.
18:37
I don't think it's just the song.
18:38
I think she just put out the song to like appeal to people
18:42
and it like give even more of an Easter egg and to show us that
18:45
there's like something larger coming.
18:48
And in the song Karma, she's like, Karma's going to hunt you
18:52
down. Like it's an active thing that
18:54
hasn't even fully finished out yet, right?
18:56
Like we're still waiting for the final Karma karma to happen.
19:00
So here are the Easter eggs from Karma, the music video, which
19:03
was released in 2023. There's a lot of Dorothy and
19:07
Wizard of Oz scenes. So that's also why we're talking
19:10
about Wizard of Oz today and friend of Dorothy and how it
19:13
couples with this theory. Because I do think that she
19:16
started to kind of like add the Wizard of Oz imagery
19:19
specifically in Karma to show that Karma is going to be like
19:24
one of her queerest albums. So she has a moon and a Saturn
19:27
reference with Ice Spice and she's kind of like showing Ice
19:31
Spice the ropes. So there's another symbolism of
19:34
like two things. So there's two of them there.
19:36
Maybe one symbolizes the single and one symbolizes the album and
19:41
she's kind of like showing her younger self AKA like Ice Spice
19:45
could kind of symbolize her younger self showing her how to
19:48
like maybe like get through it, getting through the turmoil of
19:52
her karma era and it being like pushed down.
19:54
And there's also a lot of astrological vibes that occur
20:00
with karma. Like obviously karma is like
20:03
something that's very much like the planets will fuck you up
20:08
like. It's out there in the sky.
20:10
It's astrological, right? So that's another reason why I
20:13
think the moon and the Saturn is kind of like a big karma
20:18
reference to karma. The album.
20:20
What Moon and Saturn mean together is that like emotions
20:24
and logic are like in conflict with each other.
20:27
So this could kind of make sense.
20:29
Like it's almost like a conflict between her younger self and her
20:34
new self. Like of okay emotionally, she
20:37
knows she wants to release it logically, what is this going to
20:40
do for her career? In the final scene in the Karma
20:43
music video, she has this coffee scene that shows like a clock.
20:47
First of all, if you guys don't listen to Carly Simon, I think
20:51
this is such a clear reference to You're So Vain, which is
20:55
Taylor Swift has said is like her favorite song of all time.
20:57
And she says there are clouds in my coffee, which I just think is
21:01
a reference to that. But back to like karma 1 nail on
21:05
the left hand side of the cup is blue and on the other hand side
21:10
is black. I know everyone was like, OK,
21:13
1989 is coming next and then reputation.
21:16
I immediately was like, I think this is a karma reference to
21:19
count karma to karma the album because karma was supposed to be
21:24
in between 1989 and reputation and what's in between that a
21:29
clock. And as the music video ends, it
21:32
turns to midnight, which I just as just confirming to me that
21:37
it's like Karma is coming at midnight.
21:40
We meet her at midnight. And this original album was in
21:42
between 1989 and reputation. It just like could not be
21:46
clearer to me. Her Easter eggs in her outfits
21:49
for karma have also been like very specific.
21:52
I feel like she's almost overdone this in her outfits
21:56
lately. She's wearing a lot of
21:58
astrological outfits I think like during her birthday, which
22:00
by the way, she went to a lesbian club with all of her
22:04
like gay friends and Travis Kelsey didn't go because he had
22:07
quote practice. It's like he can go to her
22:10
goddamn birthday. You could fly him out for like 2
22:14
hours of her birthday. But now she wanted to be at a
22:17
lesbian bar and she wore this dress that had like different
22:21
constellations on it, which I feel like is a karma reference.
22:25
But she's also wearing a lot of orange, pink and white that
22:29
seems to be like the new era's colors and also what happens to
22:33
be the lesbian flag. She's been wearing these colors
22:35
out and about more during surprise song dresses and during
22:38
her 1989 outfits. And I'll get into this more with
22:43
Friend of Dorothy, but it's just so clear to me that like these
22:47
colors represent like daylight and sunrise and also the lesbian
22:51
flag. But just like coming into the
22:52
light of it all. We also see a lot of Plaid,
22:55
which is a reference back to the original Karma era.
22:58
During her Bleachella moments. She's been wearing these Plaid
23:01
outfits during Chiefs games, out and about to like award shows,
23:04
etcetera. Like the Plaid is like actually
23:06
kind of ridiculous at this point.
23:07
No one wears Plaid anymore. So this is very specific.
23:11
So that's kind of the bulk of all the Easter eggs for karma.
23:15
There's a lot there. I truly think it is coming at
23:20
some point. I believe that it's going to be
23:22
the next album. If it's not, perhaps it's after
23:25
Reputation, but I'm a karma truther, so the story of Karma
23:29
and Taylor Swift's coming out is not just about this insular
23:34
album. I also think she's really
23:36
showing her like, journey to coming out through her entire
23:41
like, eras to her setlist, her pattern of albums, and
23:46
specifically through karma. And a lot of the references that
23:51
she's using are from Wizard of Oz.
23:53
And I think Wizard of Oz is a great way for her to showcase
23:56
this journey. And like, it's a tumultuous
23:58
journey to like, first of all, find out you yourself are queer,
24:01
and then also to come out to other people.
24:04
But this yellow brick road has been like the continual theme
24:08
that we've seen. And she's been flagging Wizard
24:11
of Oz, I think even before she even wrote karma.
24:14
So I think Wizard of Oz is kind of like the larger way that
24:17
she's viewed her own gay journey even before karma happened.
24:22
And karma is just kind of like the actual way she's going to
24:28
come out, like through karma. That's my theory.
24:32
Perhaps she might come out in Karma but then like the 13th
24:37
album her true self is like really encapsulating everything.
24:43
Or maybe Karma is just going to be like the peak before she
24:47
comes out. Either way, Karma is a queer
24:51
album that I believe has been a race that needs to come to the
24:54
light before we see Taylor's true self.
24:58
And I think that like Taylor has really like used Wizard of Oz in
25:02
order to like showcase this journey.
25:04
Let's get into the front of Dorothy theory that obviously is
25:06
on all of our minds. I wanted to try to get to like
25:09
every single piece of evidence for this theory.
25:14
And the more I was like doing research and like writing it all
25:17
down in my notes, I was like, holy shit.
25:19
I mean, it could not be more fucking obvious.
25:22
So Taylor associates herself as a friend of Dorothy, but also as
25:26
Dorothy. So when we think about this
25:29
theory, I think we should think about it less as like the actual
25:33
like, clear story of the Wizard of Oz and more like the queer
25:37
interpretation of the Wizard of Oz and how throughout history,
25:40
like, the LGBTQ community has resonated with this story.
25:45
So think about it less as like, oh, she wants to go home to
25:48
Kansas as like the story paints it out and more like how gays
25:52
have viewed themselves in the story.
25:54
So as a gay in the story, you don't want to go back to Kansas,
25:59
you want to go to Oz. And that's how like queers have
26:02
used this story to like, paint a picture, like the larger picture
26:06
of the LGBTQ, like struggle to like, find community and like
26:11
find ourselves. So it's not about going back to
26:14
Kansas, guys. She wants to leave Kansas.
26:17
And it, I do think it's kind of funny that she's dating someone
26:21
on the Kansas City Chiefs right now.
26:23
She's like literally in this black and white Kansas world,
26:28
she needs to go to Oz and scream in color.
26:32
The background of this theory is, if you're not already aware,
26:35
the Wizard of Oz is canonically gay.
26:38
Is that the way it has it cannot Canon.
26:41
The Wizard of Oz is gay. The Wizard of Oz is Canon gay.
26:45
Being a quote friend of Dorothy is one of the most known ways to
26:50
queer flag or use queer code to communicate that you were gay in
26:53
the 20th century, especially in the 40s and 50s.
26:56
And the Wizard of Oz came out like the movie came out in 1939.
27:00
I'm pretty sure. Yeah, it came out in 1939.
27:03
So you can't erase the queerness from friend of Dorothy.
27:07
Like it's just gay. So the rainbow didn't even
27:11
become a part of like how we now see the rainbow flag and the gay
27:16
flag. And like, is a huge symbol for
27:18
the queer community. That wasn't even a thing for
27:21
gays until after the Wizard of Oz came out.
27:24
And obviously we heard the song Somewhere Over a Rainbow.
27:27
So you can see how much inspiration this movie gave to
27:33
the LGBTQ community in the US and around the world.
27:36
And it's like pretty much like a fundamental staple of gay
27:40
history. It is iconically gay.
27:44
It is for sure gay. The guy who wrote it has written
27:47
so many gay that it's gay. OK, so there's a lot of swifties
27:52
that are like, Oh my God, like why is she talking so much about
27:55
the Wizard of Oz? You can't take away the gayness
27:59
of it. I won't let you.
28:01
So Elton John also wrote a song Goodbye Yellow brick Road, which
28:04
is literally a song about him. Like on his journey through
28:08
figuring out he was queer and coming out like it's the yellow
28:11
brick road is a huge also is also a huge symbol of kind of
28:17
closeting and figuring out your own journey to like self
28:20
acceptance. So here's Taylor's Dorothy story
28:25
as I see it. Here's my Thorry Thorry.
28:32
Here's my theory of the friend of Dorothy's story and how it
28:38
kind of aligns with her journey to coming out.
28:42
OK so again, it's not necessarily the literal plot the
28:47
Wizard of Oz, but more so the queer interpretation of the
28:50
movie and story to tell her individual story of coming out.
28:54
I think she associates herself as Dorothy and Dorothy is like
29:00
forced out of Kansas, Kansas City Chiefs and goes on a big
29:04
gay adventure to the big gay city and finds her true power
29:09
within herself. And also she like meets queer
29:11
friends along the way. She goes through a traumatic
29:14
cyclone and uses the power of the witch, which I think is kind
29:18
of like ironic 'cause if you saw my episode on witches are
29:23
lesbians, you could also see the queerness of this aspect to the
29:27
story too. And she uses the red Ruby
29:30
slippers from the witch to find out her true power and find her
29:35
own meaning of home. I mean, it's so gay.
29:38
The song literally that is in the movie is also come out, come
29:42
out wherever you are. And that also inspired a lot of
29:45
queer people and really saw this movie as just inherently gay.
29:50
The song, as I said, again, like somewhere over the Rainbow, like
29:54
you're dreaming of a world where you can find yourself.
29:57
And it really reminds me of like the TTPD aesthetic and a kind of
30:01
like the old fashioned, like she's like in a mental
30:04
institution in TTPD. And in the beginning of Wizard
30:08
of Oz, it's literally a black and white film and she's in
30:11
Kansas and she's dreaming of this like rainbow world where
30:16
she can like live out her true self.
30:20
It's so gay. So somewhere over the rainbow is
30:24
this like dreaming of being able to like have self-expression of
30:29
like who you actually are? She travels along the yellow
30:32
brick road. And that's obviously a metaphor
30:33
for self acceptance. And like coming out she meets
30:36
queer friends, specifically the Cowardly Lion, which as I
30:39
reference in my queer flagging episode, the Cowardly Lion was
30:45
just immediately queer people took to it and they were like,
30:50
that is a gay character. There's also a whole spin off
30:53
adult like a Broadway show of Wizard of Oz that's like has a
30:58
song about Howard. The cowardly Lion is gay and it
31:00
says like the lion is gay, the lion is gay.
31:02
Like the cowardly lion is gay. And she finds community.
31:06
She has to travel through the dark forest of all these
31:10
struggles, struggles within herself to find community.
31:13
She travels the dark forest into the light.
31:16
And there's this song as Dorothy leaves with her friends out of
31:22
the dark woods that literally is called out of the woods.
31:25
Step out of the dark into the light, which is very similar to
31:29
Taylor Swift song out of the woods.
31:32
And she has to finally come out on the other side of the
31:34
darkness. I think this also kind of
31:36
applies to her surprise song dresses that are kind of showing
31:41
this like journey from sunset, darkness, sunrise to daylight
31:46
and going into the dark woods and then coming out into the
31:50
light. She goes through self
31:52
transformation. She goes through fear, love,
31:55
courage, a black and white life to a life of like Technicolor.
32:00
And she also references this in out of the out of the woods.
32:03
She goes, the rest of the world was black and white, but we were
32:06
in screaming color. She's like the whole other world
32:09
is black and white, but me and my gay friends, we're living in
32:13
this world of Technicolor. It couldn't be more obvious.
32:16
Again, like I said with TTPDI think this is kind of her second
32:22
try of third try rather of symbolizing this black and white
32:27
to rainbow aesthetic. I think she tried to do that
32:30
from Reputation to Lover, and she actually almost named the
32:36
Lover album Daylight. In her Daylight song, she goes,
32:39
you have to step into the daylight and let it go crazy.
32:43
But I think that that was her attempt after she couldn't come
32:46
out with Karma. She was like, great, I'll have
32:49
this black and white, sad and angry Reputation album, and then
32:54
I'll try to come out after it with Lover, black and white to
32:58
Technicolor. And I think that was her attempt
33:00
with me that was thwarted. And I think this is her like
33:05
maybe final try to show this black and white TTPD aesthetic
33:10
into light and try to show this transformation of closeting into
33:18
coming out. She's very happy with all of her
33:21
new friends. They very much want to get to Oz
33:24
and Oz is this new modern colorful city personal power
33:30
that she found through the slippers and her journey with
33:32
all of the gaze. She goes home, but is still also
33:35
transfixed with Oz and her dream of like a new colorful world.
33:40
So I think that really symbolizes Taylor's journey,
33:45
especially with going home back to Kansas and perhaps like her
33:50
attempts of coming out, having these like blip moments of like
33:54
seeing this dream and being able to live out this dream and then
33:57
going back to this black and white sadness closeting self.
34:02
She's trying to get back there. And someone had a really good
34:06
idea of this theory that maybe she's in Return to Oz, which is
34:11
another movie that came came out like I think 40 years ago that
34:14
pretty much shows Dorothy like trying to get back to Oz, but
34:18
she's put into a mental institution.
34:21
I think that really shows TTPD that the original Wizard of Oz
34:26
was like her reputation to love her.
34:28
And then she went back to Kansas.
34:31
She's trying to get back to Oz from TTPD into karma.
34:37
But people are like literally putting her mental, mental
34:41
institutions because she's gay. It's just a crazy story.
34:45
And I feel like it tracks so much with her albums, the story
34:50
of the heirs to her and like everything like that.
34:54
She wants to go home to her family, but the question is
34:57
like, who? What is her true home?
34:58
Who is her chosen family? Is it an Oz?
35:02
It seems like it's an Oz. So that's the story again, like
35:07
there's some different little theories that people could latch
35:10
onto. I think like the larger story is
35:12
just this transformation down the yellow brick road with all
35:15
of her queer friends from a life of black and white from Kansas
35:19
into a life of being gay and in color.
35:23
The Easter eggs are just there's so many goddamn Easter eggs to
35:28
show this theory and like prove it and like coupled with it
35:33
being like a karma thing. And that's why I think karma is
35:37
going to be like her third attempt to make this journey
35:41
like and fully finish the journey.
35:43
The Easter eggs, I think kind of show the story of all of her
35:47
albums. So I'll tell it like in
35:49
chronological order of her albums, but in red.
35:52
She's wearing like, obviously Red's the whole aesthetic, but
35:56
she's also wears, like, red Ruby shoes.
35:59
And I do think it's important to note that like, Red is perhaps
36:02
like the first time this era, this time that she's like having
36:06
like a sapphic relationship maybe with Diana.
36:10
So perhaps this is when she first started to, like, feel a
36:13
connection to the Wizard of Oz and, like, start flagging it.
36:16
But the Rubies take her on a journey to the gay big city.
36:19
Because what album is next? 1989?
36:22
In 1989, she writes the song Out of the Woods, which I said
36:25
before, it's very similar to the song in The Wizard of Oz called
36:29
We're Out of the Woods. Pretty much same thing.
36:32
And the lyrics of that are you're out of the woods, you're
36:35
out of the dark, you're out of the night, step into the sun,
36:37
step into the light, get real. Then in Reputation to Lover,
36:43
obviously we skip over karma here.
36:46
Black and white aesthetic to screaming color of Lover.
36:51
Her possible second attempt at coming out.
36:55
Perhaps she thought she would be able to do it under another
36:57
management. Remember, under Lover she
37:01
finally got new management. She left big Machine.
37:03
So perhaps she was like, OK, fuck that.
37:05
They wouldn't let me release karma.
37:07
Now I can finally release Lover, which is my second attempt at
37:10
coming out. They thwarted that with the
37:12
selling of her masters. This girl is fucking going
37:15
through it. She's like, I just want to
37:16
finish going down the yellow brick road and come out.
37:19
I want to get out of the woods. She can't get out of the woods.
37:23
Call it what you want. In the lyrics of Call it What
37:26
You Want, she says all my flowers grew back as thorns.
37:29
Windows boarded up after the storm.
37:31
He built a fire just to keep me warm.
37:33
I was listening to this high in the shower, and I was like, this
37:36
really makes me think of how her coming out was perhaps thwarted
37:43
from karma. When she says flowers, perhaps
37:46
she's talking about the poppy fields on the way to ounces and
37:50
then them regrowing as thorns. Like she was pushed back into
37:54
the woods and couldn't really like reach Oz, which was like
37:58
her attempt in karma. And also when she says this,
38:02
windows boarded up after the storm, I think that's
38:05
interesting. Perhaps that's the cyclone and
38:08
then fire. He built a fire just to keep me
38:10
warm. Maybe that's to symbolize karma.
38:13
So maybe like this lover, Karlie Kloss, call it what you want,
38:18
Carly, would you want to Carly, would you want to?
38:21
Perhaps Carly is the one helping her brave through these dark
38:25
nights in the woods. And they're they were trying to
38:28
come out and they couldn't. And they just like have to get
38:30
through this. And she's building a fire to
38:32
keep her warm. The fire from karma that was lit
38:36
during karma that's still lit until it burns everything down.
38:41
All this to say, she attempted to come out, but instead of
38:44
having a coming out period, she released reputation and then
38:50
tried to come out again with Lover couldn't.
38:52
Maybe this is her third try, which again, I've been repeating
38:55
this entire episode. But so then in the lover era,
38:59
she sings daylight, which I already said before, but you
39:01
have to step into the daylight and let it go, almost like
39:04
letting go. These attempts, this attempt
39:07
before to come out that wouldn't work in the ME music video.
39:12
This is one of the biggest like Easter eggs of the Friend of
39:17
Dorothy theory and the whole Wizard of Oz journey because
39:21
there's so much here in the ME music video.
39:23
And I really do think that this was Taylor thinking that she was
39:26
going to come out and it didn't work.
39:29
She literally arrives to the Emerald City over a fucking
39:33
rainbow with Brenton Yuri, who's almost like her Tin Man or like
39:38
a gay friend on this journey down the yellow brick road.
39:42
He also has a heart-shaped hole where his heart should be.
39:46
So some people think, OK, wait, is he the Tin Man from Wizard of
39:50
Oz? There's also a very clear
39:52
rainbow brick road that they're dancing on, as well as kind of
39:56
in the side of the frame. There's also a yellow brick
39:58
road. This is like just clearly Wizard
40:02
of Oz references. And I think that this was a song
40:06
that was like, almost Taylor Swift's attempt to like help.
40:10
Like the community and like give like hope to people.
40:13
And that's why I think it's like so earnest and like millennial.
40:17
And I think that's why she was like, come on, kids spelling is
40:19
fun. Like LGBTQ.
40:21
Like, I don't know. I think that if she'd come out
40:23
after it, it would have been like a cute pride anthem for
40:26
like people going through it. But instead it's kind of like,
40:29
wait, what is this song about? And I think the attempt is to be
40:33
like a clear happiness step into the daylight.
40:37
We made it to Oz song and it's just kind of sad that it wasn't
40:43
all that she wanted it to be. After Lover, there's another
40:46
period of mourning and everyone's like, why is she so
40:50
sad? And Folklore and Evermore And
40:52
it's like she's trying to like get to Oz and she keeps being
40:56
pushed back into the woods of folklore.
40:59
And then in Evermore she sings Dorothea, which is a reference
41:02
to Dorothy. Then we go into Midnights in the
41:06
Great War. She sings place a poppy in my
41:08
hair, poppy field from Wizard of Oz.
41:11
It seems like there's this lover that's staying with her through
41:14
all of these like turmoils. And I think the Great War kind
41:18
of like shows this journey really well.
41:20
Karma also obviously from Midnights and I think is one of
41:26
the big reasons why I see Wizard of Oz like matching up with
41:30
Karma a lot, is her dressing up as Dorothy and walking along a
41:34
yellow brick road and smiling in Karma and I think that's her
41:39
showing us this journey is going to complete through Karma.
41:44
Early. Kloss also dressed up as Dorothy
41:46
for Halloween and what was interesting is that she wasn't
41:49
actually wearing red Ruby slippers to like match with the
41:52
outfit, which I thought was interesting.
41:53
Like the rubies that I gave up. I thought that was very
41:56
interesting. Maroon again, she references
41:59
rubies. There's so many Easter eggs for
42:02
this story. TATPD.
42:04
She sings in LOML. She talks about Cowardly Lion.
42:08
The coward claimed he was a lion.
42:11
Perhaps that's her talking to a lover.
42:13
Perhaps it's her talking to herself and being like, I'm the
42:17
cowardly Lion. I thought that I would be like
42:20
courageous enough to come out, but I'm still just this cowardly
42:23
lion who's also gay, sings our Field of Dreams engulfed in
42:27
fire. That visual is insane but also
42:31
references this field of poppies right before they see this
42:35
visual of the Emerald City in the distance.
42:38
And I see this as being like, then they lit on fire and we
42:42
couldn't go that journey. But to go back into the woods,
42:44
Like, how many times did you try to get out of these damn woods?
42:48
Let's get into the Airs tour to wrap this up.
42:51
My additional theory on all of this is not only are the albums
42:57
lining up with this journey of her on her road to self
43:02
acceptance, but also the way that she puts an order.
43:05
The albums also show this journey as well.
43:08
So the question is, is the Heirs tour a giant metaphor for the
43:10
Wizard of Oz? I was doing some research and I
43:13
didn't even see this in the beginning, but the concert
43:15
starts out with cyclones in the beginning, like coming down and
43:20
then the story starts. So is this her being like, this
43:25
is my journey and we're almost at the end we're almost to Oz.
43:30
There's an heiress to her mash up that she did of it's nice to
43:33
have a friend and Dorothea. She sings It's nice to have
43:36
Dorothea, friend of Dorothea and she doesn't sing Friend of
43:40
Dorothea, but it's obviously very much like she's referencing
43:44
friend of Dorothy. And this is after Swifties or
43:48
Gaylors have already started. We started calling ourselves
43:52
Friend of Dorothea. So like she's acknowledging our
43:56
community at that point. And even without Gaylord's
44:01
calling ourselves Friend of Dorothy, that's a clear
44:05
reference that she's like, I'm a friend of Dorothy or I'm
44:08
Dorothy, you're a friend of Dorothy.
44:10
We're all gay. So Taylor also has been
44:12
associating with yellow a lot. She wears yellow when she sings
44:16
her career songs, kind of like about closeting and going on
44:19
this journey. If you look at her Instagram,
44:22
this has been very clear the last few weeks, especially
44:25
leading up to her final dates in Vancouver.
44:28
But she has like a column in her Instagram that are all yellow
44:33
pictures, which I think is interesting.
44:35
Also, once TTPD was released, there were a few weeks where all
44:42
of her Instagrams were black and white.
44:44
And they've slowly started adding color in which again, I
44:48
feel like is like this switch from black and white film to
44:50
Technicolor. So the TTPD set ends.
44:54
This is kind of again to the theory that there's tours to
44:57
show this journey. The black and white set
45:01
literally ends and the surprise songs begin.
45:05
And what we've been seeing with her surprise song dresses is
45:08
that we've been seeing this like these sunset kind of colored
45:12
dresses also like bisexual flag. And she's wearing these dresses
45:15
that kind of look like the starry night, which could also
45:18
be a reference to like karma, like astrology and that like
45:21
blue glitter, midnights blood that she that she's been saying
45:26
is like showing that she's different, she's alien,
45:29
whatever. But it's going from sunset
45:33
colours to dark of night colours to then these dresses that are
45:39
like white, orange, pink, very much sunrise colours step out of
45:46
the dark and into the light. Come out as lesbian finally.
45:52
The last nights of this tour are in Vancouver.
45:57
Vancouver is also called the Emerald City, which would
46:00
finally complete her journey down the yellow brick road to
46:05
finally come into the light, meet all of her gays at the
46:08
green Emerald City in Vancouver, walk out of the orange door,
46:13
burn everything down, come out, step into the light and serve
46:18
everyone else their karma and their revenge.
46:21
So hopefully that's what happens.
46:24
Also have if you guys have been seeing she's been like counting
46:27
down on her like fingers the last few nights.
46:30
I think that she's like something else is happening
46:32
guys. It's not just going to be her
46:33
ending the errors to her. If it's reputation, of course
46:36
I'll be happy with that. But like, she is clearly Easter
46:40
egging the Wizard of Oz and these very queer coded themes.
46:46
It doesn't mean nothing with her.
46:48
It always means something. So those are the theories.
46:54
Next week we are going to be talking about the Meet Me at
46:58
Midnight theory and how this kind of applies to all of this
47:02
burning down the lover house theory and obviously performance
47:05
art LER. Again, I think all of these are
47:08
kind of coupled together to show this journey of herself
47:12
acceptance and then also like her breaking out of like what
47:15
people expect her to be of like Miss Americana.
47:18
So we'll cover that. And then literally the errors to
47:21
her ends and we all go in depression.
47:23
And I'm just hoping that at the end of this, we get met with a
47:26
gorgeous, delicious surprise instead of just mourning the end
47:31
of the era's tour. So I'll see you guys next week
47:35
and reminder to subscribe if you haven't already.
47:38
And please rate me 5 stars even if you do not listen on YouTube.
47:43
Go right now. It's so easy.
47:44
You don't need an account. You just click subscribe.
47:46
It's free. It's so easy, but I need you to
47:48
do it. OK.
47:50
Bye, guys.