For the last seven years, I have been aggressively anti-Taylor Swift. At first I just couldn’t get into her music even though all the girls in my 7th grade classroom were singing along to her self-titled first album. But as Joe Jonas put it, I was done with her and all the teardrops on her guitar. It started out with me not loving her music, but after a certain point I wasn’t sure how I felt about her as a person either. Her whole shtick of the “excited face” and being besties with so many other celebrities didn’t appeal to me. I didn’t get the hype…at all. Of course I didn’t necessarily change the station when one of her hits came on. I know the words to the “classics” like “Love Story,” “You Belong With Me,” “I Knew You Were Trouble”. But I still didn’t understand why 84% of my friends were obsessed with her.
Taylor Swift recently released her newest album, “1989,” and broke a record for the most number of CDs sold. Her mass appeal and unmatched marketable prowess are evident. Last week she released a video for her latest single off this album, “Blank Space.” After much pressuring from one of my oldest friends and my suitemate, respectively, I caved and watched the video.
I’m a believer.
I think I’m starting to understand why people love Taylor Swift. The video is amazing, and the message behind it is both hilarious and thought provoking.
Swift explained the meaning behind the song, talking about how the media projected an image onto her of a woman who falls in love with everyone, is scorned because of her clinginess and neediness, then has a meltdown and writes angrily in her diaries, penning future hit singles. She talked about the chasm between her media portrayal and who she actually is, and at some level, I felt for her. Being a celebrity means sort of giving in to the fact that no one will ever truly know who are — the media projects images on to celebrities that are distorted, and more often than not, this happens to female celebrities.
Taylor Swift was an easy target for the media, because she rarely made attempts to hide her relationships. She was labeled a serial dater and her love life was under constant scrutiny.
“Blank Space” was a response to this. She created a song and music video based around the “Taylor Swift” that the media created, the clingy serial dater.
I’m genuinely so glad that my friends made me watch the video. It literally changed me.
From the first frame, I was hooked. Fancy car pulling up to a fancy house? I’ll take it.
Then of course, the first in a series of incredible outfits comes into play. Taylor Swift is killing it in black lace. (This is a sentence the twelve year old me could never dream of.) You can already see how far she’s come from her basic, generic, cookie cutter pop star music videos of the “Taylor Swift” and “Fearless” album eras.
Once Sean O’Pry, her love interest in the video, appeared on screen, all hope of me clicking out of the video was lost. Sean O’Pry, a male model, is in the video as the object of Taylor Swift’s male gaze, her latest prey, her newest catch.
Aside from the visual beauty of the set and the star, I was blown away by the fashion displayed in the video. Swift reimagines the stereotypical “town and country” look, slow motion running in gorgeous ball gowns and picnicking in spectacularly tailored shorts. I had serious fashion envy through the whole video.
Lyrically, the song is pretty impressive. She’s come a long way from “why can’t you see/you belong with me,” coming out with some truly poetic lines, particularly my favorite line in the song — “Darling, I’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream.” Swift is clearly one of the most creative songwriters of our time, as evidenced by the number of Instagram posts and Facebook profile pictures captioned with her words.
Taylor Swift is one of the most successful women in the music business — she’s actually one of the most successful artists, gender disregarded. I always wanted to like her, I really tried to, but something never clicked for me. However, after watching the Blank Space video, after seeing her all grown up, I understand the power of Taylor Swift. And I respect her.