What happens when a celebrity feminist slings microaggressive shade?: Twitter and the pushback against neoliberal feminism

Abstract

ABSTRACT Bouncing off the excitement expressed on Twitter and onstage at the 2015 Video Music Awards ceremony involving Nicki Minaj, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, and music fans, this case study explores the pronounced whiteness among celebrity feminists within our neoliberal postfeminist culture and the pushback on social media against the glaring contradictions of Swift’s and Cyrus’s white feminism. Analyses of the tweets are conducted through both critical rhetoric and microaggressive theories, useful tools for exposing problematic hegemonic social practices regarding race, gender, and body politics within the music industry. This cultural critique on the role of celebrity feminists unmasks the role of discourse – intentional and unintentional – in both reproducing and challenging hegemonic ideologies; exposes Swift’s unknowing contribution to neoliberal feminism; and positions Twitter as a valuable venue for emerging feminists to create counter-narratives that challenge formations within celebrity feminism. By examining the celebrities’ digital interactions and the responsive fan intervention, we are able to come to a clearer understanding of the gestures that both support and challenge the co-constitutive structures of celebrity and feminism and see specifically the ways in which Swift’s neoliberal form of feminism reinscribes the very oppression that she and other celebrity feminists claim to be against.