Oh, dear. It’s Bad Blood. Tart-tongued feminist Camille Paglia has dared to criticize pop singer Taylor Swift and her Girl Squad, and as a result has received bitter backlash from Taylor Girl Squad Wannabe followers.

Paglia in part wrote:

In our wide-open modern era of independent careers, girl squads can help women advance if they avoid presenting a silly, regressive public image — as in the tittering, tongues-out mugging of Swift’s bear-hugging posse. Swift herself should retire that obnoxious Nazi Barbie routine of wheeling out friends and celebrities as performance props, an exhibitionistic overkill that Lara Marie Schoenhals brilliantly parodied in her scathing viral video “Please Welcome to the Stage.”

Yes, Paglia dared use the word “Nazi.” Despite the fact that the bulk of Paglia’s essay was sympathetic to the unique problems that women endure when they achieve the pinnacle of popular culture, as has Swift (she noted that “Young women performers are now at the mercy of a swarming, intrusive paparazzi culture, intensified by the hypersexualization of our flesh-baring fashions”), it was the N-label that caused fans to fly into a tizzy rather than contemplate the worth of Paglia’s essay.

Just another hater.
Critic #CamillePaglia calls #TaylorSwift an 'elitist Nazi barbie' https://t.co/CaW9lNpWeG

— Deplorable Me! (@Haamrtime) December 11, 2015

https://t.co/UGp9sYc5BG Oh yeah #TaylorSwift , get yourself some ugly friends to keep the feminists happy #Twaddle

— Simon Kimbrell (@simonkimbrell) December 11, 2015

I’m from the Baby Boomer generation, so Taylor Swift is not a musical icon for me. She appears to be an extremely beautiful young woman with talent oozing from her pores, but having watched her video of “Bad Blood” I have to agree with Paglia. That whole “girl squad” concept as depicted in the video is just plain ridiculous. Why should someone with the talent of Taylor Swift have to descend to such a campy, vapid display to showcase her allure and her vocal ability?

Paglia instead suggests that women learn to relate more like men do as they interact with each other. She writes:

“Women need to study the immensely productive dynamic of male bonding in history. With their results-oriented teamwork, men largely have escaped the sexual jealousy, emotionalism and spiteful turf wars that sometimes dog women.”

Perhaps Taylor Swift’s millions of female fans should thoughtfully consider Paglia’s words. There’s a lot of truth there. And as far as their rage at someone criticizing their pop princess, perhaps those fans should just ‘Shake It Off.’