Entertainment

Taylor Swift accidentally resurrects ‘Dead Poets Society’

Written by ABC Audio. All rights reserved. on February 8, 2024

(A previous version of this story published on February 7 referred to Joe Alwyn’s What’s App group as “The Tortured Poets Department.” It’s actually “The Tortured Man Club.” Further, Taylor Swift has not indicated that her new album was inspired by the chat group. The text below has been updated to correct the error.)

Since she apparently opened up a whole new demographic to watching football on Sundays — or at least when the Kansas City Chiefs are playing — it should be no surprise that Taylor Swift could introduce people to a drama from 1989, even accidentally.

Evidently, however, that’s the case with Dead Poets Society, the Robin Williams school drama that at one time had white prep school kids dreaming of a future in beat poetry, and young teachers hoping they could inspire their students by riffing as John Wayne.

Acclaimed for its time, and earning the late Williams an Oscar nomination, searches for how to stream the movie jumped some 1,135% after Taylor declared at Sunday’s Grammys that her new album would be called The Tortured Poets Department.

To boot, there was a 368% increase in searches for the movie itself, according to data compiled by the site NoDepositRewards.

All that, evidently, because the movie’s title kinda-sorta sounds like Taylor’s forthcoming opus.

It was close enough for the Swifties to be off to the races on Google.

Fans believe the real inspiration for the title is apparently a riff on a no longer inside joke between Taylor’s ex Joe Alwyn and fellow actors Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott: their What’s App chat group is called The Tortured Man Club.