Trying to demystify the clues behind a new Taylor Swift album is sort of like trying to solve The DaVinci Code. It is a highly specialized, involved job, so we usually leave it to the die-hard Swifties of the world. However, since Swift announced her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, on the New Heights podcast on August 12, the ensuing guessing game about what Easter Eggs album might contain has been leaning curiously cinematic.
The pop icon’s body of work has always gone to great lengths to make reference to literature and culture, even specifically referencing movie stars several times in songs like Style (“You got that James Dean, daydream, look in your eye”) or the simply titled “Clara Bow.” More than ever, still, The Life of the Showgirl’s 12 song titles, including one called “Elizabeth Taylor,” have detectives finding a lot of film-specific hints. Here are all the potential cinematic references that The Life of the Showgirl could be making based on the tracklist titles, ahead of the album’s release on October 3rd.
The Last Showgirl (2024)
By definition, the concept of a “showgirl” is a very theatrical one. It is clear that Swift’s new album will be a reflection of where she is in her career. Having recently finished a record-breaking, momentous world tour, the Eras tour, Swift has become a pop monolith comparable to no one else. A world of identity politics comes with such fame, and no one is more simultaneously loved and hated than she is. Of course, there is a difference between a public persona and a real person. A “showgirl,” colloquially, is someone who is adorned in sparkly, beautiful outfits and paraded about for public entertainment. She is a symbol rooted in entertainment history, forced to smile, dance, and do tricks. Presumably, The Life of a Showgirl will be a dissection of Swift’s private life away from all of this celebrity and how this impossible level of stardom has affected her.
Since The Life of a Showgirl was announced, the 2024 film The Last Showgirl has been circulating in discourse across the internet. Seeing as the film was released in the same year that Swift would have been writing the album, fans have theories that the movie could have been a possible inspiration. Thematically, it does not seem like much of a stretch. The Last Showgirl stars the legendary Pamela Anderson as an aging performer faced with her impending final performance after a three-decade career. Swift’s career shows no sign of stopping, but she did just tackle a behemoth in her career (The Eras Tour). The film primarily focuses on the titular showgirl’s reflection on her life and worth away from the stage, and as a woman outside the spotlight.
Elizabeth Taylor
So, this actually isn’t the first time that Swift has referenced Elizabeth Taylor in her music (“He can be my jailer/Burton to this Taylor,” “Ready for It” (2017). There seems to be some Taylor-on-Taylor thing happening here. Elizabeth Taylor is objectively great fodder for music, granted. Known for her striking eyes, Elizabeth Taylor was discovered and signed to MGM at just 10 years old.
She would go on to become the highest-paid actress of her time for Cleopatra (1963), but it would be somewhat overshadowed by the scandal of her affair with co-star Richard Burton. Taylor would come to be married eight times over the course of her life, a fact which has arguably become more synonymous with her legacy than her career. It doesn’t take a “Mastermind” to see why this resonates with Swift, whose career is regularly pushed aside in favor of discussing her partners.
‘Hamlet,’ ‘Babygirl,’ and ‘It Ends With Us,’ Oh My!
The rest of these movie parallels involve quite a bit of playful extrapolation, but isn’t that what a Taylor Swift album announcement is all about? Let’s go in order of the tracks. The first track on The Life of the Showgirl is slated to be “The Fate of Ophelia.” This is a clear reference to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, or perhaps even to the beloved painting by Millais (which the album art appears to be referencing). Of course, Hamlet and Ophelia have been adapted to the silver screen more than once. Ophelia has been played by the likes of Jean Simmons, Kate Winslet, and Daisy Ridley, and the tragic female figure is on brand for the kind that Swift likes to analyze. It is not outside the question that a Hamlet film adaptation could make it into the mix.
The next track worth mentioning is the burgeoning fourth, “Father Figure.” George Michael’s song of the same name has always been iconic, but it notably became cemented as part of film history just last year due to its inclusion in Babygirl (2024). Due to Babygirl‘s role in making “Father Figure” such a renewed hit, it is also not outside the question that Swift’s song in some way relates to the film.
Sixth on the album is a song called “Ruin the Friendship,” which fans are positing could have something to do with last year’s It Ends With Us drama. Famously, Swift and actress Blake Lively were close friends until their recent estrangement. Their falling out coincided with the very public lawsuit that surrounded Lively and her co-star Justin Baldoni on the set of It Ends With Us, which also adds up with the timeline of the writing of the album. If the sleuths are correct, It Ends With Us is yet another movie that has its talons in The Life of the Showgirl.
This one’s a little more opaque, but Swift’s relationship with Travis Kelce also seems to be the subject of Track 11, “Honey!”. Fans have been quick to point out the parallels between the title and Kelce’s cameo performance in the recent film Happy Gilmore 2. Kelce appears briefly and is doused in honey. Swift overtly publicized Happy Gilmore 2, saying, “Happy Gilmore 2 had me cackling and cheering the whole movie! An absolute must watch, 13/10, go watch it on @netflix as soon as humanly possible 🍯.”
Lastly, the last song shares a title with the album and will feature Sabrina Carpenter. It is worth noting that Carpenter’s brand, not unlike Swift’s, is largely based on a theatrical, whimsical, stagy kind of performance. The two sparkly blonde pop icons both present themselves in a very “movie-forward” way, which seems to be why they are collaborating on “The Life of a Showgirl.”
There are infinite movie hints one could find even in this simple tracklist, and we still have a lot of questions. What do vaguer titles like “Wood” have in store for us? We could get extreme and try to tie that one to Natalie Wood, but we’ll spare you… Does the album art contain any references to film (probably!)? Has Taylor Swift ever seen the misunderstood masterpiece Showgirls? For now, these questions will remain unanswered, but we’re having a lot of fun thinking up all the possibilities for the Taylor Swift Cinematic Universe (TSCU).
The Last Showgirl
- Release Date
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January 10, 2025
- Runtime
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89 Minutes
- Director
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Gia Coppola
- Writers
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Kate Gersten
- Producers
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Alex Orlovsky, Natalie Farrey, Robert Schwartzman, Josh Peters, Nick Darmstaedter, Kara Durrett
