(...obviously I'm just jealous, right?)
It’s shocking, I know. How could I not adore the beloved T Swift, who has won the hearts of pretty much every demographic in America with her insanely “sick beats,” super real personality, stylish new look, assertive attitude, and tear-jerking acts of kindness? By not liking her, or, put more precisely, by resisting the 2015 T Swift Call to Worship and instead only offering her a passive nod for some admittedly catchy hooks and our mutual love of cats, I am essentially entering the dark side á la Selena Gomez in the “Bad Blood” video. Here I stand, solo, give or take some explosions/flames/leather bodysuits, facing Princess Swift and an army of celeb-support that seems to multiply by the second – like the Whitewalkers, but hotter.
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| Hotness is Coming: the Models of House Swift defend her honor against any naysayer. |
As if this weren’t daunting enough, my choice to “oppose” Taylor may be even more confusing once I add that I consider myself a feminist. Taylor, also a self-proclaimed feminist, is perhaps the most popular and powerful musician in the world today, and her rise to fame might seem like a victory to us gals. Instead of the usual all-girl crowd that female pop vocalists attract, we’ve got dads, young male professionals, college bros, pubescent teen boys, hell, even congressmen openly accepting Taylor's estrogen-powered lyrics into their hearts and memories and celebrating a female pop star's work. Finally!
But this fact is actually the crux of my issue with the T Swift Movement. Please note my use of “Princess Swift” above– this is not just an expression of sass but also an intentional comparison to the Honorable Queen Bey aka Beyoncé Knowles. Yes, T Swift may have recently dethroned Beyoncé as the female counterpart to the world’s highest-paid celebrity couple, sold more albums in 2015, and won the VMA that Kanye wanted Beyoncé to win, but I can’t help but cringe at the comparative parody feminism from which she’s built her success. As a female in the limelight, role model, and representative of women around the world, Taylor portrays an image of female values that are far less developed, contemporary, and respectable than those represented by Beyoncé, to such an extent that I find her massive celebrity in today’s age unsettling.
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| "Imma let you finish, but I'm cringing inside." |
2. Katy is going to face the wrath of Taylor’s hot squad of Whitewalkers (perhaps a metaphoric reference to the ghosts--I see you, Tay) because Taylor is a better person and fully capable of maintaining strong, genuine friendships with all 100 of them
3. Taylor really would like to bitchslap her
4. Taylor will always be cooler than Katy because she’s won Grammys and Katy has not, so she should just take a good, hard look at the one next to the "Bad Blood" lyrics and cry herself a river:
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| Just a grammy and a tea kettle. In a casual polaroid. Cuz you might as well be hipster when you deliver the BURN. (Perhaps the tea kettle is a metaphor for the hot air + boiling blood) |
Cool. Now we’ve got the most popular woman in the world bolstering the already-prevalent idea that women are petty, insecure beings who constantly feel the need to upstage one another. And if John Mayer had anything to do with it all, she’s also a walking indicator that women allow men to dictate our emotions and drive us to tear our fellow females down. Couple these ideas with the sing-song vocals of about 15 high school cheerleaders yelling the chorus (“TAKE A LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DOOOOONE”) and tell me seriously that this isn’t a spy-themed spinoff of Mean Girls.
(Additional food for thought regarding the Bad Blood video: Coincidence that the prerequisite for joining the T Swift BFF4EVR club seems to be a pair of ovaries and a net worth+Instagram following of at least 5 mil? Be it fate that Taylor, who produced the video, seems to have purposely downstyled the ‘enemy’ in a lopsided wig and unflattering pleather when juxtaposed with her own sexy lewk? Cuz that would be petty, and Taylor would never be petty, right?)
VS.
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| But really though, I think they had the budget to get Selena a properly-fitted wig. |
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| Taylor dons a sexy trompe l'oeil nude bustier while Selena models the Fall ‘15 Trashbag Chic collection. |
True, though Taylor is an esteemed songwriter, some of her songs should be taken at face value. It’s pop music, right? Right. But even the video to “Shake It Off,” her song with arguably the broadest appeal, features some naïve assumptions that are too blatant to ignore. In this song, the 25-year-old talks about REAL STRUGGLES – haters who hate (the horror!), and ex-boyfriends getting new girlfriends (god forbid!)–and inspires us all to find the strength to overcome these troubling moments in life through dance. As Taylor’s attempts to be endearingly “goofy” throughout the video, she compartmentalizes demographics into highschool-esque stereotypes. Luckily for Taylor, she is just so “fun” and “relatable” in the video that few seem to notice the flock of uniformly Caucasian ballerinas or consistently black twerkers, or the fact that her various outfit changes reek of whitewashing and cultural appropriation. If we’re singing about acceptance and diversity, why does everything in this video seem to be dumbed down to a flavor of sticky-sweet vanilla?
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| Taylor shares an eye-opening cultural experience with “The Twerkers.” She is seen wearing official Twerker garb to better assimilate with the unfamiliar people. |
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| OMG Taylor u r CRAZZZZYY jumping over the boombox like that!!!! LOL! |
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| I can just envision the five of them hanging out on a Friday night, sharing life advice and style tips. Side note: Am I the only one sees something weird, maybe even a little unprofessional, about how Taylor constantly showcases her friends in the middle of performances? The fans paid to see YOU, Tay. Just sayin, you didn’t see Obama bring his golfing buddies behind the podium to add their two cents to the State of the Union. |
Moving on to the best part--love songs. Taylor loves her some love songs, particularly those of passionate and hopeless variety (re: “He’s so bad but he does it so well … Heaven can’t help me now” –Wildest Dreams). And I’m cool with that, love is cool. But while Queen Bey helps bring the romance game up to speed, singing of feeling empowered by her sexuality and the mutual love she shares with her man (see “Superpower,” “Rocket,” "Flawless," “Drunk in Love,” “Partition,” and “Blow”), Princess Taylor depicts a more 1940’s-esque picture romance, consistently subordinating herself to an array of suitors. Join me in my analysis.
“Love Story” is an obvious one–she’s a princess waiting for her prince to literally save her. “Romeo save me, I’ve been feeling so alone / I keep waiting for you but you never come,” she begs. Thank heavens she gets her happy ending here (Romeo kneels on the ground and proposes, urges her to pick out a white dress) because I was starting to worry about the girl’s mental health as she spent her days wishing and waiting out on that balcony. I’ll give Taylor a pass, though, because she was like, 13 and still singing country music when she wrote that.
Fast forward to the “I Knew You Were Trouble” video, where she’s taking on a more adult persona. She’s standing in what looks like an abandoned war zone, droning off in a monologue about how she’s literally lost herself because of some bad boy. She describes herself as “lying on the cold hard ground” amidst exasperated wails. Verse where she realizes how uncomfortable that is and picks her ass up TBA.
“Love Story” is an obvious one–she’s a princess waiting for her prince to literally save her. “Romeo save me, I’ve been feeling so alone / I keep waiting for you but you never come,” she begs. Thank heavens she gets her happy ending here (Romeo kneels on the ground and proposes, urges her to pick out a white dress) because I was starting to worry about the girl’s mental health as she spent her days wishing and waiting out on that balcony. I’ll give Taylor a pass, though, because she was like, 13 and still singing country music when she wrote that.
Fast forward to the “I Knew You Were Trouble” video, where she’s taking on a more adult persona. She’s standing in what looks like an abandoned war zone, droning off in a monologue about how she’s literally lost herself because of some bad boy. She describes herself as “lying on the cold hard ground” amidst exasperated wails. Verse where she realizes how uncomfortable that is and picks her ass up TBA.
VS.
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| I hope the only time anyone lies on the cold hard ground, it’s because they a) had a really, really great night or b) are looking flossy in an Calvin Klein campaign. |
Her constant subordination of every storyline’s female character becomes even more notable with her imagery of virgin/whore dichotomies: Along with the famous “She wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts” line in “You Belong With Me”, Taylor consistently depicts herself, the desirable woman, as innocent and delicate in a “white dress” (“Love Story”) or “in a nice dress, staring at the sunset” (“Wildest Dreams”) with “good girl faith” (“Style”). She even references Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” twice, (“you were Romeo, I was a scarlet letter” in “Love Story” and “We show off our different scarlet letters / Trust me mine is better” in “New Romantics"). For reference, the scarlet letter is originally a symbol that appears in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 'The Scarlet Letter.' The protagonist, Hester Prynn, must wear a scarlet letter ‘A’ across her chest as punishment for committing adultery so she may be publicly shamed. Though Hester decides to DGAF, wear her letter with pride, and overcome this societal slut-shaming, Taylor’s interpretation of the symbol seems misconstrued and does little more than bring the oppressive dichotomy to mind, *IMO*).
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| photo cred: Riese, www.autostraddle.com, http://riese-bernard.squarespace.com |
Now apparently I’m not supposed to bash the “Blank Space” video, because supposedly this is an ironic/artistic 'fuck you' to anyone who’s pigeonholed females into the ‘crazy girl’ stereotype. I’m into this idea, but I’m still confused how scenes of Taylor angrily destroying inanimate objects–the dude’s convertible, his clothing, his phone, a painting, a cake–does anything to mitigate the stereotype. In fact, “Blank Space” might just provide an easier means through which female pigeonholing can be served: From personal experience, a young man who had pissed me off told me that I reminded him of T Swift in said video due to my angry reaction. LAWL, but where was I supposed to go from there?
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| Don’t worry guys, if I’m upset, it’s not your fault. I’m just crazy lol! |
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| Taylor Swift is pictured here making ‘crazy eyes.’ Swift provides a perfect example of how females often display ‘crazy eyes’ in tandem with other reactions such as ‘crying’ or ‘screaming.’ The trigger for such reactions is unclear; male research shows that they are completely random, unpredictable, and meaningless side effects resulting from internal instability. Therefore, they should be treated as such and left to resolve on their own. |
So now that I’ve fully picked apart the offensive nuances of Taylor Swift’s music, I must admit she possesses many admirable qualities. She’s not afraid to stand up and voice her opinions, which she’s done through pulling her music from Spotify and writing an open letter to Apple on behalf of musicians around the world. She promotes kindness to others through her music and through the thoughtful things she’s done for her fans, as seen in her “Taylor Swift Gift Giving of 2015” video (as much as my cynical self believed this to be a contrived PR stunt, I’ll admit it was a tear-jerker). Finally, she has a much better voice than I’ll ever have and a knack for writing tunes that get stuck in my head nonstop--whether I’d like them to or not. My issue is simply this: of all the strong, talented, sexually empowered, and fabulous women we have in the world to be considered ‘idols,’ why have we chosen the one who consistently bastardizes the concepts of feminism in her music?
At age 25, Beyoncé was showing us what real bossladies were, singing, "The house I live in, I bought it / The car I'm drivin', I bought it / All the women who are independent / Throw your hands up at me!" and has modernized, even glamorized the idea of feminism today. Ariana Grande, Iggy Azalea, Katy Perry, and Nicki Minaj are just some of the many other examples of talented female pop artists who have emerged without suggesting a hint of submission to the other sex in their lyrics. Meanwhile, after what is widely regarded as a massive influx of feminism, Taylor is still stressing about boys, catfights, and looking good with her hot friends.
True, not every pop artist is going to sing about topics that I find interesting. However, by failing to touch on any topics that go beyond being rescued by boys, status, and appearance in her music, Taylor is pumping through the media that this is all that we, as women, care about. And of the positive topics she does cover in her music, she insists on delivering them in a bland, dumbed-down, cautious manner that contradicts the entire idea of self-acceptance and empowerment. This is simply not the kind of woman I want to idolize. When I hear groups of guys chanting “Oh my god, who is she? I get drunk, off jealousy!” in unison at parties, claiming that they love Taylor Swift, I know the reason isn’t because they’re feel undue respect for her, but rather because her lyrics are comical to sing or “because she’s gotten hot.” The woman I want to celebrate as as a symbol of “Girl Power” is far deeper, far more unique, far more self-assured, and far more complex than that.
So there. That is why I will not be joining the T Swift Call to Worship anytime soon. Let’s hope she doesn't write an open letter to me now.
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