Latest / gasp! the pod / sapphic "it" girls: taylor swift & clara bow, a century apart

Transcript

sapphic "it" girls: taylor swift & clara bow, a century apart · gasp! the pod

0:00
I'm like, is Taylor Swift Clarabeau reincarnated?
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Like I don't know. Hey guys, it's me, Haley from
0:15
GASP the Pod, the podcast for the gays, the girls and
0:19
especially the gay girls. So as you all know, Taylor Swift
0:22
released a song, Clara Bo. It was her last song on her
0:27
latest album, the Tortured Poets Department, and it was featured
0:30
as part of her anthology. From a brief Google search, you
0:35
can learn that Clara Bo was a Hollywood mega star.
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You can learn that she was known as the original IT Girl during
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the champagne drenched golden era of the 1920s.
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She is known for her flapper look that possibly inspired
0:50
Betty Boop. We will get into that later.
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Her quick rise to fame and her beauty, talent and charm that
0:57
tabloids could not get enough of.
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Sound familiar? You can see why Taylor Swift
1:01
feels some sort of connection with Clara Bo, right?
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But what Google will not show you when you search Clara Bo It
1:09
Girl is that she was actually a bisexual icon.
1:13
That part is often erased from history.
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Is this the big your reason as to why Taylor Swift incorporated
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Clara Bow in a song? And does Taylor see herself as
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Clara Bow reincarnated? Let's dig into it together.
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So before we get into the juiciness, first just a few
1:31
updates. I just released another bonus
1:33
episode called On the Rumor Mill.
1:35
It is on my Patreon. In order to get that content,
1:38
you just have to subscribe to my Patreon.
1:40
It's in the links everywhere. In the show notes in my bio and
1:44
this past episode, I talk about rumors that are swirling around
1:47
on the rumor mill and I give my two cents and my thoughts on
1:50
whether or not I think that they're true or false.
1:52
This week I covered Travis Kelsey and Ryan Reynolds
1:55
supposed feud, Beyoncé potentially dating her
1:59
bodyguard, something crazy that Kanye West allegedly did to Elon
2:04
Musk, all of that. If you want to hear my thoughts
2:06
on all of those rumors, that is on my Patreon.
2:09
Speaking of my #1 gaspers on Patreon, I'm shouting out Jodie
2:13
C today my TikTok queen. Thank you so much for being a #1
2:17
and subscribing. Thank you so much.
2:19
You're the best. As many of you know, if you
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become a patron member, you get a shout out as well, which is
2:24
very exciting and fun. Also, Pride is coming up.
2:27
I'm going to make Pride March and I wanted to like give an
2:31
open invite. If anyone had any suggestions of
2:34
pride content they wanted in terms of bonus episodes or even
2:38
Tik Toks or like a special episode, just let me know.
2:41
And you know, I will consider that as an episode or a piece of
2:44
content. OK, let's get into the details
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of Clara Bow, her life and the connections to Taylor Swift.
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So let's go into the Clara Bow lyrics first to figure out why
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Taylor may have included Clara in this song.
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So the first line is you look like Clara Bow in this light.
3:02
Remarkable. All your life did you know you'd
3:05
be picked like a rose? Which is kind of similar to how
3:08
Clara Bow got her rise into fame.
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This town is fake, but you're the real thing.
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Breath of fresh air through smoke rings.
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Take the glory, give everything, promise to be dazzling.
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Then she does a verse about Stevie Nicks, kind of similar to
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that verse. And then she sings Beauty is a
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beast that roars down on all fours, demanding more.
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Only when your girl is glow flickers.
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Just so do they let you know it's hell on earth to be
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heavenly. Them's the brakes.
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They don't come gently. And then you look like Taylor
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Swift in this light. We're loving it.
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You've got edge. She never did.
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The future is bright, dazzling. As we know.
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In this song, Taylor is comparing herself to Stevie
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Nicks and Clara Bow, these like, famous talented beauty icons,
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right? And also, she's talking about
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how beauty is a beast that roars down in all fours demanding
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more, and how like, you're always being asked for more.
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It's hell on earth to be heavenly.
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So she's talking about like, all of a sudden being plucked to be
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famous by the industry, being told, Oh my gosh, you're so
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gorgeous. You're so perfect.
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You're being plucked like a rose.
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And then you have the tabloids, and you have the expectation to
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remain beautiful, this expectation to be consistently
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dazzled, feeling this pressure that the industry puts on you
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and these, like, beautiful, iconic women.
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So that's something that Taylor Swift is obviously saying.
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She's felt that Clarabelle and Stevie Nicks and these other
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iconic women of history have also felt.
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The interpretation that a lot of people have is, OK, you know,
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it's really hard to be a star as a woman, right?
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But is there more to this connection with Clarabelle?
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Because it's not just this song. This song is not the only
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reference Taylor Swift has made to Claribo.
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My argument is that it's also because of Claribo being a
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bisexual icon and that has been erased by history.
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And that's something that Taylor Swift also feels a connection
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with Claribo. OK, so who was Claribo and what
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was she iconic for? So she rose to stardom during
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the silent film era and she was one of the few actresses to
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successfully transition to the talkies, which is just like
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movies with people talking walking in them.
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And she was nicknamed the IT girl.
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She was literally the original It girl.
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The word like it girl was invented because of her.
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She was also a sex symbol in the roaring 20s and in 1928 she was
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the first box office draw. When she was in a movie, it was
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literally said that she insured investors with her presence by
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literally 2 to one because if she was in a movie, it was going
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to be successful. At her peak, she also received
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more than 45,000 and fan letters in a single month and she
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debatably inspired the Betty Boop character that we all know.
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Taylor Swift also drew a connection to Betty Boop at the
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Grammys this past year. She wore this like red short
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dress and had this pose that she was doing that was very similar
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to the Betty Boop pose and had thigh jewelry that looked very
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similar to the Betty Boop character's jewelry.
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So now this is Taylor Swift referencing Clara Bo multiple
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times, not just the song, but in her Betty Boop reference at the
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Grammys. Now, there's a lot of debate
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over who exactly inspired Betty Boop.
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It's mostly accepted that it was inspired by multiple different
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Roaring 20s actresses. Some say it was Baby Esther who
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inspired the character, a black stage performer in the 1920s.
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Some say it was Clara Bo and others say Helen Kane.
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So there's a lot of dispute on who exactly the one individual,
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you know, woman it was based off of.
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Either way, Clara Bo is like very much associated with Betty
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Boop and with the flapper 1920s short haired, you know,
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aesthetic that we think of when we think of Betty Boop in the
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1920s. So let's go into Clara Bo's
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early life. I'll then talk about her like
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rise to fame. And of course, we're going to
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connect all of this to Taylor Swift, and then we will go into
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her bisexuality. So first I just wanted to add
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trigger warning for sexual abuse, schizophrenia, violence,
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drugs, and mental illness. Just because that occurs in
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Claire Bo's early life, she did have a very hard childhood.
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Probably one of the aspects of her life that does not actually
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relate to Taylor Swift. A lot of the rest of her career
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and her experience with fame is very strikingly similar to
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Taylor Swift's story. Claire was born in 1905 in
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Brooklyn, NY. She was the youngest of three
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siblings, actually the only one to survive childhood, which is
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really fucking horrible. Her family was very, very poor.
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Her dad was sexually abusive and an alcoholic and was often
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absent from her life. And then when it comes to her
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mom, her mom suffered from seizures and mental illness and
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schizophrenia. And when Clara is asked about
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later in her life, about her upbringing, even though she
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acknowledges it being really hard, she has like a very
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complicated recollection of her memories with her parents,
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parents. And she talks about like, being
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really close with her mom at some points and then like,
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taking advice, like good advice, quote, quote from her dad in
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times of her life. So she had a complicated
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perception of her childhood as well.
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So the way that she viewed her childhood was complicated,
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right? So her mom suffered from
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seizures and Claire took care of her as a kid rather than vice
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versa. And then her mom was actually
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institutionalized when Clara was 16 because she attempted to kill
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Clara. Clara woke up with her mom
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trying to kill her, which is insanely fucking traumatic.
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Just like the craziest upbringing.
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And apparently this was after she learned that Clara wanted to
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be an actress. And then a few years later her
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mom passed away. All of that to say, she had a
9:14
very traumatic upbringing. In school, she talked about
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being a tomboy and learning to look out for herself by fighting
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and having like a bunch of guy friends.
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It's giving queer. She says that girls shunned her
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because of her poor clothes. She also found escape through
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watching films, and she eventually dropped out of school
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at the age of 16. This is a quote from her later
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in her life. She literally says quote.
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I always had a queer feeling. Now remember queer back then,
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you know it wasn't used in the same way we use it now, but
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still notable. I always had a queer feeling
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about actors and actresses on the screen.
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I knew I would have done it differently.
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I couldn't analyze it, but I could always feel it.
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I'd go home and be A1 Girl Circus taking the parts of
10:00
everyone I'd seen living them before the glass.
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I mean, she even talked just so like eloquently and like it
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gives very much Taylor Swift, right?
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Like circus, A1 girl circus and like feeling different than
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everyone else and like living them before the glass.
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Like you could see how a lot of this could have been used as
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inspiration for Taylor Swift, right?
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And perhaps incorporated into her music.
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So at 16, Clara entered a magazine nationwide acting slash
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beauty contest. And she actually won.
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In a 1922 issue of Motion Pictures Classic, the contest
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jury said about her winning quote.
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She is very young, only 16, but she is full of confidence,
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determination and ambition. She's endowed with a mentality
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far beyond her years. She's a genuine spark of divine
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fire. Her personal appearance is
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almost enough to carry her to success without the aid of the
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brains she undubitably possesses.
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So this part really hit me. I feel like it sounds a lot like
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the Clare Beau song where Taylor Swift says all your life you
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didn't know you'd be picked like a rose.
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This very much feels like her being picked by this contest
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being like we you're so pretty and have a little brains.
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Like I'm picking you into stardom.
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This quote also sounds like what people said about Taylor Swift
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when she first got famous at age 16.
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The similarities are kind of crazy.
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So when she won, she won an evening gown and a silver
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trophy. She was supposed to be put into
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a movie because often the winners of this contest would
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like, get, you know, a deal and, like, get into a movie.
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She was put in Beyond the Rainbow.
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Ironic that it was about rainbow.
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Apparently she was cut because her acting was quote immature
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and then her parts were actually reinstated into the movie once
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she became a star. But anyways, this was her first
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official movie that she was cast into.
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And then after this she began to haunt the magazine's office and
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like beg for another part. She visited studios relentlessly
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like asking to be like in another movie.
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It very, very much gives Taylor Swift when she was like a young
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teenager and she was like knocking on the doors of all the
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record companies like begging for a record deal and like
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sending her like demo like it's just the perseverance is very
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similar of these two women, right?
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So let's move into her career and like stardom.
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So she finally got another role as a tomboy in down to the sea
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in the ships. She was very highly acclaimed in
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this role and was then chosen for the in 1924 Wampas Baby
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Stars because of how she performed in this role.
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So she says over and over that she was a tomboy.
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This doesn't necessarily like relate to Taylor Swift, but it
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just shows like the queerness of Clara Bow.
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Like as a kid she was a tomboy. She really convincingly played
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tomboy roles. And then she, you know, would
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often dress and like genderqueer outfits throughout her life.
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So after that, she went on to be like, booked and busy in a bunch
13:06
of different small independent films.
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And then she befriended actress Mary Carr, who apparently showed
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her how to use makeup and look more femininely, look more
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flapper esque, which worked. She left New York City for
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Hollywood in 1923 and signed with Preferred Pictures.
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Her first big Hollywood film was in May time and then she went on
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to star in an array of silent films, many of them flapper
13:32
parts, which helps cement her as like one of the main flapper
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like actresses, right? So it's like at the time when
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you thought of a flapper, you would think of her.
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So she was really cemented into this flapper aesthetic and this
13:45
role. She rose to such a level of
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extreme popularity when she was put in the movie It and starred
13:52
in it, which gave her the nickname the IT Girl.
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And literally, when we think of the IT Girl today, like, oh,
13:58
she's the IT girl. The 2000's, the word and the
14:01
phrase It Girl comes from her being in this movie.
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So it's like she is forever influenced Hollywood and just
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like celebritydom in general. She was literally the first It
14:13
girl. And her rise to fame was so
14:16
sudden and when she was so young that you can see how Taylor
14:19
Swift would like, I don't know, find some connection in her.
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She was kind of consigned to these sex roles or these flapper
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roles. Her like, redheaded sexy flapper
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look became iconic when she was on a poster or the movie poster
14:34
or something like that. Everyone flocked to see the
14:36
movie because everyone knew what she looks like.
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And they were like, that's Clara Bow.
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That's that redheaded flapper. We're going to go see that
14:43
movie. And I think there's something to
14:45
be said for like, being iconic. You need like a signature look,
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right? She had a signature look.
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Taylor Swift has a signature look, which is bangs and red
14:54
lipstick, right? So like, this really helped
14:57
cement her into being just like a mega *.
15:01
And then she successfully transitioned to talkies, like
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talking movies, where it wasn't just a silent film with 1929's
15:08
Wild Party, which we will get into.
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This is the juicy bisexual stuff.
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She starred in dozens of films after this.
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Her final ones were with Fox Studios, Call her Savage and
15:20
Hoopla that were actually both unsuccessful, and then she
15:23
retired shortly after that. We will get into kind of like
15:27
the media aspect and like why she retired after this
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bisexuality section. OK, so when it comes to her
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romantic life, she was actually married twice.
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She was married to Rex Bell for more than 30 years.
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They met when she was recovering from some mental illness stuff
15:44
in about 1931. And then they had two sons
15:48
together, which also random, but I think it's kind of funny that
15:52
like, she had two sons because Taylor Swift has talked a few
15:55
times about like, potentially having kids and like the two
15:58
sons thing. Like in her antihero music
16:02
video, she portrays herself as having two sons.
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Isn't that just weird? I don't know, there's just a lot
16:08
of connections. And like, is Taylor Swift
16:10
Clarabeau reincarnated? Like I don't know.
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I do believe in reincarnation. So OK, so she was rumoured to be
16:17
bisexual for a long time. This is not like one person
16:22
saying she was bisexual. Like for her entire career
16:25
people were whispering and talking throughout Hollywood
16:28
about her queerness. OK.
16:31
In the same way that these rumors of Taylor Swift have been
16:35
going on for so long in the movie, Call Her Savage was just
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like fucking iconic name for a movie.
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Claire's character interacts with literally flamboyant gay
16:45
men at a bar. And at this time, like, if
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you're associating with gay people, you might as well be gay
16:50
yourself. She was also known to dress as a
16:51
tomboy, like I said, even into her adulthood, which really
16:55
lended itself to the queer rumors.
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And she was known for her friendships and rumored
17:00
relationships with people in the LGBTQ community.
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She was very good friends with William Haynes, who was an
17:06
openly gay actor, and with Dorothy Arzner, Dorothy, a
17:12
lesbian director who was actually well known to be an out
17:15
lesbian. So in like literally 2 seconds,
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I'm going to go into her rumoured relationship with
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Dorothy Arsner, which is pretty much the Karlie Kloss to Taylor
17:24
Swift. And if you guys haven't thought
17:27
about it yet, yes, I'm very much aware that this is sounding like
17:30
7 husbands of Evelyn Hugo. She has all these tabloids
17:33
talking about her relationships with men and then meanwhile she
17:38
has this rumoured relationship with this woman.
17:41
It's very much giving Evelyn Hugo.
17:45
So in the industry, everyone knew that Clara had a bohemian
17:49
lifestyle and had flings with both men and women at the time.
17:53
People knew that she was having relationships and usually
17:57
multiple relationships at the same time.
17:59
Bicon icon, maybe? Perhaps Polly icon, who knows.
18:04
Regardless, she was queer. And again, could she have been a
18:08
lesbian and not even necessarily bisexual?
18:11
Totally. How we interpret like historical
18:14
figures sexualities is not always going to be accurate
18:17
because they had different terms back then.
18:19
And also what we do know is that she had relationships with men
18:23
and women. Now were the men relationships
18:25
just wants to cover her female relationships.
18:28
Totally possible. This bi label is not necessarily
18:32
one that she gave herself or that people were literally
18:35
saying oh, she's bisexual. It was more like she's a queer,
18:39
right? So it's like hard to know her
18:40
exact label, but like bye is probably more likely than not
18:45
her label. It's not confirmed that her
18:47
relationships were like beards, but again, entirely possible.
18:51
The point is that she was queer for sure.
18:55
I usually say most likely or allegedly but like it's like
18:59
pretty clear that she was queer, right?
19:02
And I just say bye because it seems like she was bye.
19:06
And I don't want to automatically assume that the
19:08
relationships with men were fake because that's not the story
19:12
that I'm getting through my research, that the male
19:15
relationships were fake. However, still possible, We
19:18
don't know. OK.
19:18
So she also considered herself to be an outsider of Hollywood
19:22
society. And she was also kind of put in
19:24
that position because people knew that she had this, like,
19:26
bohemian, like, lifestyle. And that very much sounds
19:32
similar to Taylor Swift, too. And it's like when you actually
19:36
look at Taylor Swift from an outside perspective without
19:39
like, knowing really too much about her, it doesn't seem like
19:42
she's an outsider of Hollywood society.
19:44
But think about how much Taylor Swift talks about feeling like
19:48
she's different from everyone else.
19:50
And it's like, I wasn't made for this life, that this isn't for
19:54
me. Like, I need to leave and go to
19:56
the countryside. Like, I'm just not like everyone
19:59
else. Like she talks.
20:00
I mean, she has a song called The Outside, but that was when
20:03
she was young. She talks so much about being an
20:06
outsider. And that's very similar to
20:07
Claire about too. Even though these are huge, big
20:11
names and some of the most famous women of Hollywood, it
20:14
doesn't mean that they felt like they fit in.
20:18
So like in retrospect, they're like the pinnacle of success,
20:22
but maybe in the actual time they weren't feeling that way.
20:25
Maybe they felt the success, but they didn't even feel like their
20:28
Co workers, their Co actresses and actors and the industry
20:31
people like accepted them as like the same.
20:35
Maybe you have to be very different from everyone else to
20:38
like reach that level of fame. But she did not feel like she
20:43
fit in with the industry people or like the normies right, the
20:47
conservative industry people. So Adela Rogers, St.
20:51
John's crazy name, who was a screenwriter who worked with
20:55
Clara Bo, wrote about her and said, quote, she lives entirely
21:00
in the present, not even for today, but in the moment.
21:03
Clara is the total non conformist.
21:05
What she wants, she gets if she can.
21:08
She has real courage because she lives boldly.
21:11
Who are we after all, to say she is wrong?
21:14
I mean, I think that's pretty much saying she's queer without
21:17
saying she's queer. Like icon behavior right there.
21:20
OK, let's talk about the film Wild Party of 1929.
21:25
This was really the movie that kind of pushed the queer rumors
21:29
over the edge where it's just like such a fucking gay movie.
21:33
I mean as gay as you can get in 1929.
21:36
So the setting of the movie is a girls only university, which any
21:41
of y'all that have been to a girls only school knows that
21:44
like people tend to be very lesbian and girls only
21:46
universities. The movie just with that aspect,
21:49
has a lesbian subtext. And the whole movie, like,
21:52
focuses on female friendships. I put that in quotes because
21:57
they're kind of more than friendships, right?
21:59
I mean, they're not explicitly, but that's kind of the energy.
22:03
There's also like, a lack of heterosexual relationships in
22:07
the film, which makes it seem like the women do not care about
22:12
like, the heterosexual relationships and only about the
22:15
other women. The movie is directed by Dorothy
22:17
Arsner who I said before with that lesbian director that was
22:22
rumored to have a relationship with Clara Bow and Clara starred
22:26
in the film. Now this film is also pre Haze
22:30
code era and maybe I'll do an entire episode on the haze code.
22:35
But before the code was implemented in Hollywood, you
22:38
were able to conclude more raunchy or sexual or like,
22:43
out-of-the-box themes and content.
22:46
So that's why I was able to be, like, as gay as it was, right?
22:50
Clara and Dorothy were known to be, quote, great pals and were
22:54
pictured together literally with Clara sitting on Dorothy's lap
22:57
romantically. I mean, they had a very long
23:00
friendship. And everyone knew that Dorothy
23:02
was a lesbian. And Clara already had, like,
23:05
bisexual queer rumors. So it's just like, dude, they
23:10
were definitely dating. It's so Karlie Kloss and Taylor
23:14
Swift coded. It's pretty wild.
23:17
So if you were like actually tuning into the real history of
23:21
Clara Bo, this is a huge part of her life.
23:24
Like this aspect of her personal life, of her living this
23:28
bohemian queer lifestyle. She was a bicon.
23:32
She was a queer icon. And the fact that Taylor wrote a
23:37
song about someone who was also rumoured to be bisexual and had
23:40
this, like, all these tabloids were talking about it.
23:43
I mean, come on, it's crazy. OK, So let's talk about the
23:47
media's toll on Clara Bo's career and then her departure
23:51
from the industry. So Clara faced a lot of tabloid
23:54
scrutiny. A lot of it was talking about
23:56
the men she had relationships with and that, again, like, her
23:59
bohemian lifestyle. And like I said before, her
24:02
having relationships with women, specifically Dorothy Arsner
24:07
also, just like so fucking funny that her name is Dorothy with
24:10
the friend of Dorothy, friend of Dorothea.
24:14
And hey, Dorothea, just like all of that is just so fucking wild.
24:18
I can't be at the tabloids were like all over her because she
24:22
was like the icon of the time. They were just very focused on
24:26
like the men she relationships, the engagements that, you know,
24:29
she broke off and her like crazy, crazy 1920s lifestyle.
24:35
And it just when you think of this era and when you think of
24:40
this lifestyle she had, it also makes me think of the last Great
24:43
American dynasty. I know that Clara did not live
24:46
in that house, but it just, you can see how like a lot of this
24:49
could have inspired Taylor Swift's music.
24:51
So the tabloids and the rumors and the gossip was just insane.
24:55
The media frenzy was crazy. And at this point in time in the
24:58
1920s, there's only so many stars.
25:01
So like, every, everyone's focused on her, OK, she had an
25:05
overloaded work schedule. She had an industry that was
25:07
putting so much pressure on her. And like the celebrity scrutiny
25:11
was, I'm sure, way too much on her.
25:14
So all of this, including the trauma from her childhood and a
25:18
history of mental illness that ran through her mom, just took
25:22
too much of A toll on her and it pushed her to have a breakdown.
25:26
In 1931, she actually entered A sanitarium and was going through
25:32
recovery for what she found out later was schizophrenia.
25:36
She retired in 1933 from acting at the age of 28, only 28.
25:42
And that's so crazy, Like, how quickly the industry can, like,
25:46
break you and just all of this. Does it not sound like Taylor
25:51
Swift? Holy shit.
25:52
And then think about the tortured poets department, you
25:54
guys. And think about Taylor Swift
25:57
talking about, you know, being sent away and being in this
26:01
mental hospital and being forced to take pills and like, the
26:05
outfits and the aesthetic of the tortured poets department and
26:08
being chained to a bed. It's really, really strikingly
26:11
similar. And it just feels very much
26:14
Clara Bow inspired. Perhaps there was an element of,
26:17
like, being sent away for, like, being deemed queer.
26:21
We don't really know that because that's not in the
26:23
history books, but it's just interesting to think about,
26:27
right? Because a lot of what Taylor
26:28
Swift kind of alludes to in her music is that she has this,
26:32
like, illness, and she has this, like, curse upon her.
26:37
And it's like almost religious in a way.
26:39
And then she's sent away to a mental hospital.
26:42
And what we also do know about women around this time is that
26:45
they were sent away to insane asylums for being gay.
26:49
So I'm not saying that that happened.
26:51
I'm just saying there's an interesting through line there
26:53
with like queerness and mental illness and being forced to go
26:58
to a psych ward. So like I said, after she
27:00
retired from acting, she she went on to have a family.
27:04
Unfortunately, she actually attempted suicide in the mid
27:06
1940s and was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
27:10
She was only spotted a few times later in life, and one of the
27:15
only times she was spotted after her departure from the industry
27:20
was when she attended her husband's funeral.
27:22
And then she passed away at age 60 in 1965.
27:27
What I do think is wild about her departure is like, I fear if
27:32
Taylor Swift is like, nearing her life after her, that Taylor
27:36
Swift is going to have a departure.
27:37
And she's also hinted that a lot of times, like I feel like her
27:40
reputation era was her, you know, soft launching what a
27:44
departure from the industry would be like.
27:47
And she's kind of almost in a departure right now, leaving the
27:51
public life. She hasn't been pictured in a
27:52
while. It's just interesting.
27:54
So Clarebo now is still the original IT girl, and when we
27:59
think of these new IT girls of every era, they're still
28:03
compared to her because of how iconic, how talented, how
28:07
charismatic, and how light and how big she was in the history
28:11
of Hollywood, one of the biggest stars ever.
28:13
So we shall end with these Clare Bow and Taylor Swift
28:16
connections, and I want you all to ponder on these and let me
28:19
know if you think of any. You know, I'm constantly
28:21
listening to Taylor Swift's music and like making new
28:23
connections and realizing things.
28:26
So let me know if you guys realize any connections.
28:28
But I do feel like the tortured pose department, the aesthetic
28:31
of it is black and white 1900s, early 1900s aesthetic,
28:37
especially of the outfits. The whole concept of like being
28:41
sent away to like an insane asylum and like a psych ward is
28:46
strikingly similar to Claribo. The queerness is strikingly
28:49
similar to Claribo. The song Claribo is obviously
28:53
referencing Claribo. And then at the end of the
28:56
torture, Poe's department after this black and white era, what
28:59
does she wear? This red Betty Boop dress.
29:04
And Claribo was arguably one of the inspirations for Betty Boop.
29:09
So there's a lot of Clara Bow inspo, especially in Taylor's
29:14
latest album. What does that mean for Taylor's
29:17
work? I don't know.
29:18
Is Taylor about to disappear like Clara Bow and like, leave
29:21
the industry? Is she showing that, like, if
29:24
she was in a different generation, she would be sent
29:26
away and, like, shunned? What we hear from the history
29:29
books is that Clara went to go get help for her mental illness.
29:33
Every report we have is that she voluntarily checked herself into
29:39
in mental hospital. But again, it's just crazily
29:43
similar to the imagery we see specifically in the Fortnite
29:46
music video. She also went through a lot of
29:50
these tests with shockings and stuff to like help cure her of
29:55
her mental illnesses. And like, when you watch the
29:59
Fortnite music video, Taylor Swift is having these, like,
30:01
shocks. And as treatment, it's eerily
30:06
similar. And I don't know if Taylor's
30:08
trying to say, like, this is what's going to happen to me if
30:10
I continue to have this type of like pressure and this type of,
30:14
like, scrutiny from the media. I don't know if Taylor's trying
30:18
to say like, I will do what Clara did, or it's going to
30:21
force me to also have to be going to a mental hospital.
30:25
She could have also just used her as a jumping off point to
30:28
talk about like, what being a woman was like, especially a
30:31
queer woman was like in the early 1900s.
30:34
And how it's still very similar now today, I don't know.
30:38
But it's just so similar. Like the media and the tabloid
30:41
frenzy of both Clara and Taylor specifically gossip about their
30:46
romantic lives with men and, you know, focusing on them being
30:50
overtly sexual and like, demonizing them for that.
30:53
That was what a lot of the tabloids were about Clara and a
30:56
lot of them for Taylor, too. They were both rumored to be
30:59
bisexual and they're both Hollywood outsiders.
31:03
And then Clara vanish from the industry.
31:06
It's just scary. And I don't want Taylor to leave
31:09
the industry and I I do hope she's healthy.
31:12
I don't want her to be in the industry if it's not healthy for
31:14
her. But again, we don't have access
31:16
into Clara actually talking about her sexuality for real or
31:20
like what impact that had on her leaving the industry.
31:24
Obviously Clara had a very traumatic childhood and a
31:28
history of mental illness that ran through her family that I'm
31:32
not sure that Taylor has. And Taylor did not have a
31:35
traumatic childhood as we mostly know about.
31:39
So that's a huge difference into why Clara obviously ended up
31:42
needing to get treatment. But we don't actually have the
31:45
full story either way. I think the connections between
31:48
like media and tabloids and that impacting their lives and then
31:54
the bisexuality is just insane to me.
31:58
I think Taylor has like studied Clara's life and a lot of these
32:02
famous IT girls, but specifically Clara.
32:05
It just seems like there's so much connection here, and I
32:09
think a lot of it comes from maybe Taylor realizing that they
32:13
had a lot in common and then now potentially using her for
32:16
inspiration. Like I said before, Claire's
32:19
life also just very strikingly sounds like the seven husbands,
32:22
Bevel and Hugo, and Taylor's life does too.
32:25
It's obvious that Taylor has incorporated a lot of these
32:27
themes, connections between her and Claire's life, into her
32:31
music and her artwork and her art, specifically in the torture
32:34
pose department. And the fact that she ended kind
32:36
of like the era of TTPD at the Grammys with this red Betty Boop
32:41
pose and dress, I don't know, makes me think that there's
32:45
something coming that is still kind of on track with Clara's
32:50
life. Perhaps a departure, perhaps
32:52
maybe doing something that Clara could never do and come out.
32:56
I don't know. You guys know that I want the
32:57
latter situation to happen. Some people have said, you know,
33:01
what if Taylor is going to star in a Betty Boop movie?
33:04
What if she is writing a screenplay?
33:07
What if she is getting more into film and wants to become an
33:09
actress? And, you know, using these Clara
33:12
Bo Easter eggs to like, show us that that's her next venture.
33:17
I don't know. I'm excited for anything.
33:19
I hope she doesn't vanish off the face of the Earth.
33:22
I think if anything, it's just like amazing that Taylor Swift
33:25
has like shown another spotlight on Clarebo, so she's not
33:29
forgotten throughout history and the people don't forget that she
33:32
was actually a Bicon. That's very important to me.
33:35
The people do not forget that celebrities back then could be
33:38
queer too. And I learned so much about
33:40
Clara Bow because of Taylor Swift writing this song, so for
33:44
that I'm very grateful. Let me know what you guys think,
33:46
tell me your theories. That's my episode for this week.
33:49
Reminder that I have that bonus episode out of On the Rumor Mill
33:52
on the Patreon if you want to go check that out.
33:55
And hope you have an amazing week.
33:57
Love you guys, see you next time.