Opinion: The Taylor Swift Course Needs to Exist in the Philippines

(SPOT.ph) The reactions of Filipinos to the elective course on Taylor Swift offered by the University of the Philippines—ranging from amusement to dismissal—only emphasize the need for such a course to exist and be more accessible to the public.

Two things.

First: critical studies of popular texts (materials, figures, and events) are not entirely new. Aristotle’s Poetics, a treatise on ancient Greek poetry and drama, was penned over 2,000 years ago. In the Philippines, scholars like Soledad Reyes have been studying teleseryes and komiks since the latter half of the previous century.

The thing is, the texts we now consider classics, such as ancient Greek epics and tragedies, were essentially the pop culture of their time. In 2,000, assuming our world remains habitable, we’ll probably study Taylor Swift the way we do Sophocles today.

Everything is text—that is, a meaningful cultural artifact or medium—and hence, everything can be a subject of scholarly scrutiny. Tell me all you know about ancient lyric poetry, sure, but I’d rather you tell me all the Taylor Swift songs you think could have been written by Sappho. Explain to me why you believe Ang Probinsyano is essentially a rewriting of The Odyssey.

Second: the fact that everything is a text also means that everything is a viable source of creative inspiration. It’s 2024 already, so there should no longer be rigid distinctions between “serious” and “popular” texts. Consider Takashi Murakami and Jeanette Hayes: following Andy Warhol, these contemporary artists blur the line between the highbrow and the lowbrow by blending classic and pop references and styles in their works. Are you writing ekphrastic poems inspired by viral memes related to celebrity breakups? Show me all of it.

That these ideas are novel and surprising to the Filipino public somehow reveals the failure of the academe to disseminate knowledge to a wider audience. There should be more effort to popularize these ideas further.

Moreover, the significant number of Filipinos mistaking a “course” for an entire degree program, which resulted in their negative reactions, is alarming. This situation further underscores the gap between academia and the public. This may be an understandable error, given that in Philippine English “course” usually refers to degree programs. If there’s a meaningful relationship between academics and the public, though, the distinction should have been obvious from the beginning.

In the end, studying the humanities and the social sciences is not only about learning about artists and thinkers, their lives, and their works. If taught well, these subjects provide us with different ways of interpreting the world. One excellent way to understand society is to take a long look at the media they create, consume, and censor. Personally, I dream of a future where these perspectives become common sense, where discussions about the sociopolitical implications of Taylor Swift’s songs—or any other song—happen not only in college lectures but also during dinner at home.

Jade Mark Capiñanes teaches media and writing and is the author of a collection of short fiction, How to Grieve (2022, Everything’s Fine).