Abstract

This chapter discusses the ethics of body image in relation to Taylor Swift's apparent experience of disordered eating and body shaming. I first contextualize Swift's experience, as it is depicted in the Netflix documentary /Miss Americana/, before connecting it to Heather Widdows' account of the contemporary beauty ideal in her book /Perfect Me/. I go on to explore the role of celebrity and gossip in the morality of beauty norms, since the burdens of dominant beauty ideals may fall disproportionately on figures in the public eye, like Swift. Finally I discuss the question of resistance to dominant beauty ideals and the extent to which it is possible to defeat a negative body image, or what Swift calls a "hate spiral."