Queen Charlotte, Taylor Swift, & the MAGA Male Gaze

It’s not about the form-fitting clothes, aggressive displays of décolletage, or even the Mara-Lago-face plastic surgery. It has nothing to do with the rapid abandonment of “conservative” values that once had Republican women buttoning their shirts to the neck. And it certainly isn’t about telling women how to dress.

Instead, the alarming nature of MAGA-female fashion lies in the court of The Mad King. No, not Melania’s lunatic but Charlotte’s. Yes, the one whose madness helped catalyze the American Revolution.

Unlike the current crazy couple, George and Charlotte actually loved each other, as we all now know from Shonda Rhimes (thank goodness). And Charlotte loved fashion. Or rather, she loved a specific kind of fashion. At a time when the rest of Europe favored simplified silhouettes, Queen Charlotte retained her formal robe à la française with its elaborate pleats and cumbersome wide square hoop, however that works. But perhaps most famously, Queen Charlotte loved a good pouf, a highly ornate hairstyle that required a triangular pillow, a thin metal frame, and heavily pomaded postiches, not to mention multiple hairdressers wielding heated clay curlers and, of course, plenty of powder.

It would seem, perhaps to us, unlikely that many women would want to - let alone actually - emulate this style. And yet, Queen Charlotte set the tone and the standard for English fashion in the Georgian Age.

But before we claim a feminist fashion victory, let us ask ourselves why women adhered to such a demanding dress code. While no doubt Charlotte had her own sense of style, she wouldn’t have been allowed to exercise it without the King’s tacit approval - marital harmony or no.

What’s more, the women of the court didn’t seek to imitate her looks on account of the Queen’s own authority or intrinsic value. Predicated on a patriarchal power structure, the monarchical system inherently dispossessed all women of those qualities - even queens. Instead, it was only by the King’s approval and permission that she gained a modicum of authority and influence, be it legal or stylistic.

The women of the English court dressed like the Queen not out of homage but to mirror her position in the power structure, i.e., closest to the King. By dressing like her, they demonstrated their own proximity to the king through fealty to his sexual preferences, thereby beseeching his approval and, in that, the approval of their immediate ruler, be it father, husband, or another male regent.

Combing the idea that this Protestant King represented God’s emissary on earth with his female subjects’ towering quaffs, one wonders if King George’s Court was actually the inspiration for Dolly Parton’s witticism, “The higher the hair, the closer to God.” That being said, we all know Queen Dolly has her own direct line to the Deities.

But I digress.

Back to my point.

The pattern that emerges between this feudalistic fashion sense and the stylistic choices of MAGA women is, well, frightening. While the busty-blond conservative commentator trend can be traced back to the predatory fetishes of Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes, the MAGA woman fad takes the craze to a whole new level.

Warning. What I’m about to write next is so gross.

The fem-MAGA look is not predicated on a type of woman but the actual woman, or women, with whom DT has had sexual relations. Consensual, paid, or forced.

Like the women of King George’s court, the women of the MAGA Mad King’s court seek to curry his approval by imitating the actual woman that he has deemed worthy through sexual attraction. Only through this direct communication of worth and value by the monarchical male gaze can the profound and sudden shift in conservative women’s fashion be explained.

It is also worth noting that according to philosopher and icon Judith Butler, gender is understood as a “copy of a copy,” meaning, “it’s not a fixed, innate trait but a socially constructed performance that relies on the imitation of norms and expectations.”

By this definition the most authentic expression of gender comes not from heterosexual cis people but from those who perform this performative gender, i.e., drag queens.

Ergo, the purest form of MAGA-fem isn’t a woman doing a straight interpretation of this socio-political gender, but a but a person of another gender preforming that gender role.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you Lady MAGA who somehow perfectly merges peek Georgian fashion with the “taste” of the red-hat-wearing-Oval-Office-usurper.

FOR GOD SAKES IT’S NOT JUST THE HAIR IT’S THE DRESS TOO!!!!!

And by the way, according to 19th News, even the Lady has hung up her heels over Trump 2.0s virulent anti-LGBTQ+ policies.

And I wouldn’t have even written about any of this or even cared much were it not for something the Mad King himself tweeted proving my point. Namely this:

Not hot. Why?

Because MAGA women are appraised only by their worth to men and derive their value to men from their capacity to imitate the monarch’s sexual partners.

Meanwhile, Taylor determines her own intrinsic value and, in so doing, defines the full scope of her freedom. (Oh, and her billion dollars.)

Nothing could be more unattractive to a monarchal sense of aesthetics than a woman with her own throne.

At the same time, there is ultimately no more beautiful sight in the world than a liberated woman reveling in her own majesty.

So here’s to all the independent women out there. Long may you reign.