How did a little girl who grew up on a Christmas tree farm become the world's biggest pop star?

Pop Pantheon's new series digs into Taylor Swift's origin story,

from her upbringing in West Reading, Pennsylvania, and knocking down label doors in Nashville as a teenager,

to her rise to country superstardom and eventually the global stage.

Whether you're a Taylor obsessive or a swifty skeptic, this series will

illuminate the genesis of a supernova and one of the most important figures in American pop

cultural history. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Hot Masterpiece Theater, the show where we have high-brow conversations about low-brow entertainment, mainly reality TV.

I'm Jolenta Greenberg, comedian, and culture critic, and I will be serving as your reality TV dramaturg. A dramaturg is a researcher that works on theatrical productions and gives people background information about a show that they're seeing or that they're working on. And a reality TV dramaturg takes reality TV seriously, like it

is serious art, because it is. It is storytelling, just like every other form of entertainment.

And the characters we see on reality TV are just as messy as the ones in Shakespeare or Greek

mythology. Truly the main difference between them is wardrobe choice and the amount of plastic surgery they've had.

Thank you so much for joining me today. We are continuing our journey through different archetypes.

Reminder archetypes are those character blueprints. They sort of give an outline for what a character's vibe is, what they care about, what they're

yearning for, that kind of stuff. And this week, we are going to talk about quite an intense

archetype, the savior. The savior, and technically we're talking about the female savior

here. I may not get to the male savior because I'm sick of that archetype and I think it causes a lot of problems in society. That's a different episode.

We're talking about the female savior. She tends to be a polarizing figure. You either love her or you hate her. She is intense and she's not very insecure about that.

Kind of like Mary Cosby from the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, she has her beliefs and you either go along with them or you

are cut out of her life. Like her talking about being called to leave the church, despite her

mother's wishes to run the church herself, is very much giving intense savior vibes.

I always say I have beauty in all my mess.

The reality is that I am married to my grandmother's second husband, which was my step-grandfather.

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