Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Taylor Swift is No ‘Nazi Barbie,’ Jewish Group Tells Camille Paglia

An Australian Jewish group has criticized author Camille Paglia for referring to Taylor Swift as an “obnoxious Nazi Barbie.”

The chairman of the Australian B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission called Paglia’s comments, which she published in an article for the Hollywood Reporter on Thursday, “obscene.”

“While Paglia is entitled to her views about Taylor Swift’s music and performance, her absurd and offensive comparison of Swift to the Nazis, whose genocidal policies and actions resulted in the systematic persecution and slaughter of six million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust, betrays an ignorance of what really happened in Hitler’s Third Reich,” said Dvir Abramovich, according to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald.

“Such obscene and insensitive equations have no place in our cultural discourse and only serve to demean and trivialize the memory and suffering of the victims.”

Abramovich called on the Hollywood Reporter to “repudiate” the article and issue a public apology.

Paglia, an eminent feminist academic and social critic, made headlines last week with her polarizing essay about Swift, who is among the best-selling American musicians of all time.

“Swift herself should retire that obnoxious Barbie routine of wheeling out friends and celebrities as performance props,” Paglia wrote.

Paglia’s argument focused on Swift’s “girl squads” and the way she often surrounds herself with celebrity friends on and off stage.

“Writing about Swift is a horrific ordeal for me because her twinkly persona is such a scary flashback to the fascist blondes who ruled the social scene during my youth,” she said.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Explore

Most Popular

In Case You Missed It

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version