Taylor Swift's 'You Belong With Me' starts out as a cute story of how a slightly geeky/nerdy teenage girl falls in love with her next door neighbour, the popular quarterback jock. Yes, it is the tale of poor old cinderlla and her prince charming. As the video moves on we see that boy does in fact enjoy Taylor's company, even when she is a nerd, but the catch is that he has a very glamourous girlfriend. The girlfriend is everything you would expect her to be; she sits side by side on the social throne of high school with the quarterback. She has a fancy car, she is head cheerleader, she wears make-up, straightens her hair, and greets her man with a possessive kiss.
Sadly, as the song moves on, the message takes a turn. And Taylor constantly compares her self to the boy's girlfriend during every chorus. The lyrics,
"But she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts
She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers"
talk about the comparison of her physical appearance, then the different social status' they have. Taylor's intentions are meant to highlight how the girl who acts as her self and is normal has the true understanding personality that the boy should choose instead of the high maintenance and materialistic persona of his girlfriend. However, through the last chorus she finds that the only way to finally win him over, and have the confidence to step out and admit her feelings, she needs to dress up in a beautiful dress, take her glasses off, let her hair down, wear make-up, and stop studying.
This only proves further that as a female we need to be man's object of desire and conform to the images and stereotypes females are given through the media. The more this message is fed to females, especially teenagers and young girls, the more these women try to change them selves because they know nothing else but to do so in order to succeed in life. It becomes self harmful in result because, as a female grows increasingly into their own person and further away from the stereotype of a female, they must betray their true persona to become this idealistic form that the world perceives as normal. It's unhealthy, and in some cases can lead to depression, self esteem issues, anorexia etc because the need to become the perfect female image becomes too strong. In Taylor Swift's music video, this intelligent, unique girl does conform to the stereotypical female image.
The intentions of this song and its paired music video are wholesome, but it has not escaped the strong influence the media has that creates a sense of insecurity in teenage girls who would watch this piece of film.
This only proves further that as a female we need to be man's object of desire and conform to the images and stereotypes females are given through the media. The more this message is fed to females, especially teenagers and young girls, the more these women try to change them selves because they know nothing else but to do so in order to succeed in life. It becomes self harmful in result because, as a female grows increasingly into their own person and further away from the stereotype of a female, they must betray their true persona to become this idealistic form that the world perceives as normal. It's unhealthy, and in some cases can lead to depression, self esteem issues, anorexia etc because the need to become the perfect female image becomes too strong. In Taylor Swift's music video, this intelligent, unique girl does conform to the stereotypical female image.
The intentions of this song and its paired music video are wholesome, but it has not escaped the strong influence the media has that creates a sense of insecurity in teenage girls who would watch this piece of film.
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