Hi, I'm Ali, and it's been 3 days since my last fiery pontification on why I hate Taylor Swift.
Screw it; I'm leaving Taylor Swift Hater Rehab. Although that's not really an apt description of this particular hatred of mine. I'm sure Taylor Swift is lovely, doesn't deserve to be degraded, and makes all the little woodland creatures flock to her when she skips through the forest.
What concerns me is that the media/people around me extol a figure who subscribes to and owns such a lurking brand of latent, archaic sexism in her music.
Why aren't people talking about how heinously disenfranchising Swift’s schema of relationships are? Swift, who is now 21, NOT FOURTEEN, is a grown woman, yet the media coddles her like she's the next coming of christ. The media rewards Swift for writing her own music as if she singlehandedly invented the process itself. Swift writes decent and predictable songs, and that's okay. Every song is about the same unrequited love, unmet expectations, and tragic heartbreak.
She's the musical equivalent of the Twilight Series, except that, for whatever reason, no one criticizes Swift fans like they do Twilight fans. As a huge Twilight fan, I accept said criticism and derision, and admit that it is in fact, horrible writing. Which is why it is perfectly fine to like Swift, as long as you don't subscribe to just about anything she says or emulate her in any way.
Is Swift a "good role model"? Absolutely not. If my daughter were ever to submit herself to the sort of helplessness and self-victimization that Swift not only has sustained but basically reinvents with every new song about a boy who broke her heart, I would smack her with a copy of The Feminine Mystique. Every time a young girl puts up a poster of Swift up in her bedroom, Betty Friedan convulses in her grave.
The fact that Swift thinks she is the quiet, comely girl in the corner who the boy never notices in lieu of the shiny, morally bankrupt cheerleader is a complete mockery of girls who were ever ACTUALLY quiet and comely. In Swift's video of You Belong With Me, she purposefully looks dowdy, mussing up her otherwise perfectly curled mane and donning a pair of enormous glasses. Which she has to do to make the point, because she's actually tall, blonde, and gorgeous (despite unbecoming narrow shoulders).
Swift's definition of "outcast" is a carbon copy of the classic archetypes; outcasts are in the band, wear T-shirts versus short skirts, and dance around their bedrooms awkwardly. This is nothing new. As far as I'm concerned, all the "villains" of Swift's teenage dream/nightmare (aka the cheer captain who straightens her hair at 5:15 in the morning every day before school) deserve the guy, because they play dirty and look slutty, which is an awesome combination.
"I'm in my room it's a typical Tuesday night/I'm listening to the kind of music she doesn't like"
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Someone enlighten me; what music could Swift's protagonist possibly be listening to that has more street/indie cred than the hotter cheerleader's music? I'll wait.
But honestly, this isn’t about a specific weird and misguided lyric of hers. It’s about the fact that somehow Swift is considered a better role model than Lady Gaga (I know I can hear your groans, this bitch is going on about Gaga again, but let me assure you that everything, absolutely everything, relates to Gaga) or Nicki Minaj. Are they sexually suggestive and explicit? Yes. But they also threaten to poison and kill people, which is awesome. The level of empowerment that prominent female figures such as Minaj and Gaga are promoting and asserting is so much more exciting and creative than the predictable drivel that Swift is pumping out. Also, if you base your outlook on romance/relationships/boys on one of the many misled popular beliefs/coping techniques of Swift, it makes you a stupid person.
BOOM, ROASTED!
