On Love as Performance Art

And the Case of PR Relationships

Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles in New York City in March 2022. Photo by Neil Mockford/GC Images.

This is the second newsletter in a row that I’m opening by mentioning Taylor Swift, which is about as on-brand as I can get. I risk redundancy; however, there is no pair that better exemplifies this article’s topic than Taylor Swift and Matty Healy, lead singer of the band The 1975. If you’re tuned into Swifite Twitter, you’re likely well aware of rumors swirling around Swift and Healy’s romance. Healy has been spotted at several of Swift’s Nashville stops on The Eras Tour, dancing along to “Shake It Off” in the audience. The two have been photographed in a blurry Escalade arriving at Swift's Nashville condo and holding hands in public. Verified Twitter accounts have been providing play-by-play updates on the unfolding of this “relationship” like a sports commentator. A tweet from a couple of weeks ago reads that “Taylor has a crush on Matty” and that the two are having a “good time hanging out.” Many have joked that Pop Base will soon be tweeting that the two have hugged by the lockers after class.

I have to give credit to that joke where it’s due.

Celebrity PR relationships are nothing new - they were certainly alive and well during Hollywood’s “golden age,” as Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, and Spencer Tracey and Katharine Hepburn graced red carpets hand-in-hand. However, lately, it feels as if PR relationships are inescapable. Last year, Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde’s relationship was just about everywhere I turned on the internet. Pete Davidson has played rent-a-boyfriend for many a beautiful socialite, from Kim Kardashian to Em Rata. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have a Netflix series about their love. Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker’s wedding was sponsored by Dolce & Gabbana.

What I’m learning the tell-tale sign of a PR relationship to be is the randomness of it all. Suddenly, a very public paparazzi photo of two celebrities kissing or walking into an event holding hands spawns. Viewers are met with awe and confusion, puzzled as to how these two people whom we would have never previously linked are now inextricably tied. Sometimes we don’t even need photographic evidence of odd couples. In the age of Twitter accounts like Pop Crave and Pop Base - verified pop culture news trackers - all it takes is a tweet for a relationship to assemble. According to these sources, Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner are dating, as well as Leonardo DiCaprio and Gigi Hadid. There is no physical evidence of these relationships, but fortunately, physical evidence isn’t necessary for the PR strategy to take hold.

The second tell-tale sign is a big project coming up for either member of the couple. In Swift’s case, the dating rumors began swirling amid her global tour and the day she announced her re-recorded album Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). Styles co-starred in the Wilde-directed movie Don’t Worry Darling (2022) and the pair conveniently split after the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Actors Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell have also appeared smitten with one another on red carpets after wrapping their upcoming film Anyone But You (2023), and the coziness will likely escalate come premiere time. 

The goal of PR relationships isn’t always to spark favorable commentary about a person, so much as it is to keep a person (and thus their work) in the cultural conversation. In addition, when actors who play couples onscreen appear to date in real life, it gives viewers this sense that an idealized, fictional story in a film is closer to their reality than it was previously. Audiences are suddenly “in” on the secrets of Hollywood, like it’s one big high school fishbowl, with rumors to be spread and individuals to be scrutinized.

Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell at CinemaCon in April 2023. Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images.

As interesting as the operations of PR relationships are, I’m most fascinated by how they exemplify public “performance” - more specifically, public performance of romance. There are certain cultural signifiers that our society has long associated with displaying affection, and thus love toward another person. There’s the obvious hugging, kissing, and hand-holding, and more subtle gestures that indicate intimacy - making direct but soft eye contact, opening doors, doing grocery runs together. These expressions, small and large, work collaboratively to convey affection not only to one’s relational partner but to the world that’s watching (either out of the corner of their eyes or with binoculars).

In PR relationships, these gestures are often performed clumsily, likely because they aren’t stemming from a place of authentic, mutual love. For example, this video does an excellent job of breaking down the scripted nature of a brush that Pete Davidson and Emily Ratajkowski have with paparazzi. We observe Davidson peer through his fingers at the cameras as he attempts to park his car, giving an earnest “No photos please!” look. Em Rata stands on the curb, walking towards Davidson’s car when the camera pans to her - she practically waits at her mark until a director yells “Action!” When the two arrive at Davidson’s apartment, they give each other a prolonged hug in the lobby - which is shot by paparazzi through the window. Davidson throws his hood on after the hug, making sure his face wasn’t obscured in the photographs.

Davidson and Ratajkowski perform all the gestures one associates with budding love - the nervous waiting on the curb, the picking someone up in your car, the hugging. But given the quick and random nature of this relationship’s life cycle and the context of celebrity, the gestures lack the purity of individuals with ardent crushes. Grace O’Neill touches more on this in her article for Harper’s Bazaar, mentioning what the two have to gain by being associated with one another. She writes:

“The partnership feels more like a buzzy collaboration than a genuine relationship: the coming together of two compelling figures who bolster each other’s personal brand — Ratajkowski as the intellectual New York cool girl, Davidson as the unlikely wooer of beautiful women.”

Pete Davidson and Emily Ratajkowski sitting courtside at a Knicks game. Photo from Backgrid.

Notably, celebrities aren’t the only people that perform relationships: we all do. In fact, many have theorized that selfhood is necessarily performed, something that Erving Goffman communicates in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1956). The actions that we choose to engage in, both implicitly and explicitly, teach others how to perceive us and help sharpen our own sense of self. The tone of voice we use, the way we walk, the outfits we select for ourselves - they all play a role in forging our identity. 

While it’s easiest to imagine these tokens as being merely symbolic, they aren’t just representational. They don’t just represent our identity, they often are our identity. This phenomenon is most often explained in the context of gender. Due to cultural conditioning, we subconsciously identify “men” as humans with short haircuts and boxy T-shirts and “women” as those with long, flowing hair and dresses. Without these visual indicators, gender does not exist; it’s an arbitrary idea that survives through presentational norms, namely by subscribing to the typical dress of one of the two genders in our dominant binary gender system. Non-binary people similarly construct their identity by appearing in defiance to or in subversion of dominant presentational gender norms. What we do makes us who we are.

Likewise, relationships do not exist without action. They don’t just happen, they are enacted through gestures our culture has deemed fitting for displaying affection. It’s impossible to describe “love” without describing some kind of action; the phenomenon is manifested in comforting someone, making them laugh, running an errand for them, and even just expressing a feeling of devotion to them. The only way we can show someone how much we love them is through “doing love” for them. Even when it comes from an authentic sentiment, love is necessarily performed. 

Our obligation to perform love and have love performed for us to appropriately experience it showcases how gestures are not meaningless symbols. While gestures themselves are devoid of substance, they act as a conduit between our internal sensations and the world with which we seek to communicate. Philosopher George Santayana touches on this in Soliloquies in England & Later Soliloquies (1922). He writes:

“Words and images are like shells, no less integral parts of nature than are the substances they cover, but better addressed to the eye and more open to observation. I would not say that substance exists for the sake of appearance, or faces for the sake of masks, or the passions for the sake of poetry and virtue. Nothing arises in nature for the sake of anything else; all these phases and products are involved equally in the round of existence.”

Both substance and the outward representation of substance are needed to function in our society - either attribute works in tandem with the other. Nonetheless, it is possible to attempt to represent substance without possessing substance itself. Mass media and social media have made these attempts all the more feasible, as they provide individuals with presentational affordances. For example, you can post a smiling selfie on Instagram while actively feeling sad, maybe even while you’re crying. You aren’t currently embodying happiness, however, you’re conveying happiness to the public. You’re presenting or performing joy. The same can occur with love.

In fact, young people often devote substantial mental energy to devising how to present a new romantic relationship to the public via social media. To “hard launch” one’s relationship with a definite post on the grid, or to “soft launch” through an aerial dinner date shot - hand-holding in frame - on the story, that is the question! Before social media, it may have once been a question of PDA and labeling - Do we loop our arms as we walk in public? Do I refer to you as my “boyfriend” to my friends? But since so much of our public life has migrated online, how we present our relationship to an online audience is now of avid concern.

A critique of social media that I have made vehemently is that it strips the romance out of just about everything. “Romanticizing your life” online has become a trend, consisting of curating profiles that perfectly speak to your interests and aesthetic preferences. However, nothing about that experience is romantic - it often lacks vulnerability and spontaneity, and is instead a calculated means to get others to perceive you in a certain way. We all do it - it’s simply a part of our social landscape. Moreover, when you get caught up in how you’re presenting yourself - and your relationship - to others, the core meaning gets muddled.

I’ve had friends tell me personally that they appeared to be the most in love with their significant others on social media - constantly sharing couple photos, mushy captions, etc. - when their relationships were struggling the most. This certainly isn’t the case for every couple, but as with personal matters, when a relationship is hollow - lacking real love and care - but its presentation appears robust, it’s likely cause for concern. As we have seen from the phoniness of PR relationships, style without substance can only take couples so far.

I think we’re all better off considering celebrities and social media personas similarly: as somewhat real, somewhat make-believe, but ultimately as individuals performing with the knowledge that people are watching. The gestures we enact to communicate love are important - without them, our love would have no way of escaping our mind and reaching another person. However, they are most effective when stemming from a place of genuine affection. A PR relationship without passion, an Instagram caption without fondness, a building without a foundation - all are sure to crumble.

Taylor Swift and Matty Healy

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