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The Parallels of Taylor Swift and Clara Bow: The IT Girls From Different Centuries
Taylor Swift recently released her new album The Tutored Poets Department, and while people have been rejoicing the singer's comeback, one particular song has caught the fans attention.
Flesh and blood amongst war machines/ You're the new god we're worshipping.
Nothing rings truer for the two women I'm going to focus on today than Taylor Swift's Lyrics. They were divided by a century but united by their shared experience of being the IT girl in an industry that knows how to build stars, and then get rid of them just as easily. Swift and Clara Bow seem to have more in common with each other than one might think.
The rise to fame of Clara Bow
Clara was famously the woman for whom the term IT girl was coined for; her movie, It, made her a household name around the world. The actress first got noticed for her incredible skills in silent movies in the 1920s, but once the movies integrated sound and dialogues, Bow proved to be just as strong of a force to reckon with as before. Bow became known for her iconic style, which included her thin eyebrows, and often revealing clothes for her time set her apart. Her charm and flapping in her roles had the press calling her a 'seductress'.
The parallels between Taylor Swift and Clara Bow
While Taylor Swift and Clara Bow did not have a similar start to their lives. After all, Bow had grown up in the worst of circumstances in Brooklyn, NYC, with even her birth itself being a miracle, with her two older sisters dying even before they could turn one. On the other hand, Swift grew up in comfort compared to the actress. However, as I read more about the two starlets their career trajectories became intertwined, mirroring each other eerily.
While Clara found success in her teen years, starting at 16, Swift too started her career early on. Both the IT girls grew up in the eyes of the public, captivating some, and becoming an absolute no-no for others, but either way, they had the world at their feet at one point in time. But sadly what goes up comes out.
The Wild Party Actress found herself in a bind when her ex-assistant, Daisy DeVoe went on, what I can only call, a defaming attempt to take her down. DeVoe wrote a bunch of damning and at the time scandalous articles talking about Bow's sex life, talking about all the alleged relations the actress has had. When the stories started to come out in the 1930s, the damage that they caused to Clara's image was irreversible. Which would ultimately bring her career in Hollywood to a close.
Similarly, back in 2016, when Taylor was riding high on the backdrop of the success of her album 1989, her feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian made the Blank Space singer public enemy no. 1. From media outlets to netizens online, public opinion mostly sided with the rapper; so much so that Kardashian labeled Swift a snake. Swifties would know what followed after was a year-long hiatus from Taylor, where other than a couple of paparazzi shots the singer went incognito.
Where the similarities end
Fortunately for Taylor and Sadly for Clara, the parallels between the two are right there. Bow's mental health, much like her mother worsened with time. I was surprised to know that the actress and her mom both suffered from Schizophrenia in the later years of their lives, for which they were institutionalized into an asylum. Unlike her mom who was sent there by her dad, Clara had herself admitted into the asylum, where she found out about her mental illnesses. Sadly she lived out the rest of her life alone in her home in Los Angeles with a live-in nurse.
The resurgence of Taylor Swift and woman in Hollywood
Swift came back like a '90s trend after her seemingly career-ending feud, taking the industry by storm that tried to write her off. In 2017 without much fanfare, she dropped her album, Reputation, telling her side of the story, and in the process owing the 'snake' image that many had termed her to be. Everyone knows what happened after, the singer has just gotten bigger and better since then.
While it's a relief that the Shake It Off Singer didn't have the same fate as the 1920s actress, their stories are also a glaring critique of the way women are treated in the entertainment industry. Swift's song, Clara Bow can be interpreted in many ways, but to me, it's an open letter of admiration and sisterhood from Taylor to the stars who came before her. And the many struggles they were condemned to for no fault of their own, but for the sole reason that they were in successful women in an industry that didn't like women very much. After all, it is hell on earth to be heavenly.
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