A tale of two Americas: An empty State Fair, an A-list royal wedding

With a stunning New York skyline lit by the Empire State Building – “something blue”, maintaining the old wedding tradition – America’s sweethearts Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have tied the knot. Shrouded in secrecy, the wedding came even with a Hollywood guest list: Hugh Grant, Bradley Cooper, Gigi Hadid et al.

But with the world’s eyes on the United States on the eve of an American milestone – the national Fourth of July holiday, in the country’s 250th year of independence – it may come as a surprise that America’s semi-quincentennial was the last thing on anyone’s mind. Or maybe it will not.

In the national capital of Washington, DC, the official celebration of the country’s birthday, The Great American State Fair, has drawn thin crowds despite the fist-bumping enthusiasm of the hosts on Fox News’ round-the-clock broadcast – a humiliating epilogue to 2½ centuries of waning American cultural power.

Instead, all eyes are turned 330 kilometres to the north-east, to New York’s Madison Square Garden, where the wedding of pop singer Taylor Swift and footballer Travis Kelce has become the dominant headline of the day – Australia’s brutal exit from the soccer World Cup notwithstanding.

Few details were clear, even as the world’s media descended on New York in search of the story. We live in an era where entertainment has become the evening news. Which puts a celebrity wedding of the Swift-Kelce star wattage at the top of the news list.

It would be easy to dismiss this as the showbiz-ification of serious news. But that would be to seriously misunderstand changing cultural appetites for what makes a story, and deeply under-measure what this event says about modern popular culture, and even modern politics.

The America-centric world may think that everything orbits around the erratic pronouncements of US President Donald Trump, but in truth, America’s 47th commander-in-chief is a supporting actor nominee in a modern day rom-com that positions Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce at the crossroads of media and cultural power.

Which means this is not so much a distraction from the celebration of America’s story, but America’s story itself revealed: the storybook romance of a 36-year-old Pennsylvania-born country music star, and a 36-year-old Ohio-born football tight end. They are the Little Golden Book of America’s literary reality.

Of course, none of this is new. Back in 1920, Hollywood’s first super-couple – Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks – were married in the shadow of the early modern media age, creating global headlines and drawing crowds in the tens of thousands to watch on as they honeymooned in London and Paris.

In 1956, the marriage of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier III of Monaco in Monte-Carlo’s Saint Nicholas Cathedral was a transformational media event, turning a newsreel romance into a television program that people watched from their sofas, eating warmed-up TV dinners.

In 1981, the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer was the cultural and technological evolution of that, with three quarters of a billion people watching at home. And in 1999, the original sports-guy-marries-pop-star nuptials of David Beckham and Spice Girl Victoria Adams set the stage for what is unfolding in New York today.

In a sense, Taylor and Travis are the natural heirs of Posh and Becks, a stage-meets-stadium wedding, with an A-list guest list almost as fascinating as the happy couple themselves.

When Charles married Di, it was perplexing enough to work out how comedian Spike Milligan, US first lady Nancy Reagan and actress Susan George fit into the complicated mosaic of the celebrity world. The Swift-Kelce wedding is a similar jigsaw, with Grant, Cooper, Lena Dunham, Ethan Hawke and others. Who even knew they all knew each other?

Neither Swift nor Kelce would seem to come from humble beginnings, though both seem to convey an easy-going, accessible charm. That’s the key to why it all works.

As a couple, they are writ large from one of America’s most deeply established cultural tropes: the romance between the football captain and (self-described) showgirl or simply, the school’s prom king and queen. When the dark side of American politics invokes its back-to-the-good-old-days sales pitch, such white picket fantasies are, ironically, the elusive promise on the table.

But the upbeat note their wedding strikes also serves as a reaction to the political polarisation and economic anxiety that dominate all the other channels on the dial. Even the Great American State Fair has been tainted by political division and cheap point-scoring.

That both Swift and Kelce lead gigantic micro-universes around their social media profiles – she has 273 million followers on her Instagram account alone – positions them as a perfect antidote to doom-scrolling. Kelce’s Instagram is followed by an infinitely more modest 7.7 million people, though that might change after the couple exchanged vows.

It’s not surprising that television struggled to cover the wedding visually, as it was behind closed doors, high walls, cyclone fencing and police cordons. The guests may have signed NDAs, but the bride and groom have not. And this wedding will ultimately play out its brightest moments in the happy couple’s own social channels.

The astonishing amount of money that papers the walls of the celebrity world should render anyone famous as too remote to feel any real connection with, but both Swift and Kelce have built brands based on authenticity, likeability and optimism. And they are leading the discourse of pop culture on their own terms.

Photo editors will hang their hats on stage images of her singing, or him powering down the football field. But the most potent imagery connected to their relationship are those images of Swift in a box at the football, cheering Kelce on. Or Kelce in the audience at Swift’s concerts, singing with the crowd.

That’s the kind of publicity that money cannot buy. And it speaks to the kind of connection that powers what is probably close to a $US2 billion ($2.88 billion) merged – well, married – brand.