Did Taylor Swift Just Doom Us to Another ‘American Pie’ Sequel?
Sure, we’ve already had an inexplicable nine total American Pie movies, and, yes, most of them have been hot, steaming piles of dogshit. However, can we really say that the franchise that hasn’t had a theatrical release in over a decade is dead when we still haven’t seen American Pie Presents: Girls' Rules: Taylor’s Version?
Today, Taylor Swift surprise-dropped her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, and her massive fanbase is already hard at work chronicling every reference, name-drop and insinuation made in the double album’s whopping 31 tracks. A constant topic of the album is, of course, Taylor’s relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end, three-time Super Bowl champion and prolific podcaster Travis Kelce, who is presumably the subject of bangers like the line on “I Hate it Here” that goes, “We would pick a decade / We wished we could live in instead of this / I’d say the 1830s but without all the racists.” As culture critics and Swifties are happy to point out, a blonde singer/songwriter playing tunes about a football star is even more American than – well, you know.
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On the track “So High School,” one line sticks out as dangerously potent for reviving a piece of Americana that hasn’t been in style since the early 2000s in the vein of what Taylor did for the friendship bracelet – in the song, Taylor describes an average night in with her boy toy, singing, “I’m watching American Pie with you on a Saturday night / Your friends are around, so be quiet / I’m trying to stifle my sighs / ‘Cause I feel so high school every time I look at you / but look at you.” Somewhere out there, Jason Biggs has a stiffie and he’s looking for a dessert to calm it down.
The first American Pie movie – which, if there was a God, would be the only American Pie movie – is not currently streaming on any of the major platforms. However, I’m willing to bet that, right now, there is at least a four-way bidding war over the title between Netflix, Hulu, Max and Amazon to win Universal’s approval to cash-in on Taylormania during this pivotal first weekend of The Tortured Poets Department.
But, to be honest, I don’t think that there is all that much overlap between people who enjoy hyper-horny teen sex comedies aimed almost exclusively at boys and Taylor Swift fanatics. And, when Taylor and her boyfriend sat down for movie night the evening she first thought up the lyrics to “So High School,” I’m guessing that it was Travis’ night to choose the flick.
Hopefully, this bump in popularity that American Pie is about to experience is short-lived, but the sheer capitalist power of Taylor’s brand is enough to push even the most exhausted film franchises into a tenth installment. If and when we return to band camp, I know what music will be playing this time around.
