This weekend my best friend came for an incredibly long overdue visit and, because she can hear me thinking a post from 1700 miles away she brought me an article from Bitch Magazine. (Did I mention how much I love that girl?)
I like to say that Taylor Swift is one of my biggest guilty pleasures. Some people smoke, I cry at the end of Love Story. Don’t’ judge me.
But I’ve always been a bit perturbed at the presence of such Madonna-whore/good-girls-wear-white-and-bad-girls-have-sex imagery in her music and videos. She’s said in the media that she really enjoys being a role model for girls and I’ve been wondering exactly what kind of role model she is.
Mormon mothers all across America are beyond thankful that she hasn’t gone the Lindsay Lohan route and to be honest so am I. But they’re also thankful she hasn’t followed Miley Cyrus, Christina Aguilera, and whatever other girl pop icons (get ready for it) had sex.
The Bitch article made me ask a lot of questions about Taylor. And in asking those questions I had to separate Taylor, the girl, from Swift, the brand.
Swift’s image generally screams VIRGINITY! YOUR DAUGHTERS WILL HAVE A REALLY HARD TIME GIVING A BLOW JOB WHILE LISTENING TO MY MUSIC. Exactly what is the ratio of white/non-white clothing in her closet. I’d say only Elle Fanning tops her. And her brand is consistently bashing the girl in the trashy dress who ‘gives it all away.’ Remember this?
So we can safely say that Swifty, the brand, is caught up in telling young girls to keep their most precious asset safe.
And so I remember very clearly from when she was dating GROWN A$$ MEN like John Mayer and that Gyllenhall hottie wondering exactly how adult her relationship with them could be. I remember Gyllenhall buying her big gifts and thinking how curious that was. A fancy guitar in exchange for her most precious of all things?
Then this article pointed out exactly what the issue is. Swift the brand is about as virginal as it gets and the people who manage the brand have been very careful to keep it that way no matter what the truth may be.
Which leads to my next question. In the article it points out that in one of her latest songs Mine she alludes to ‘a drawer of my things at your place.’ Finally acknowledging that like most girls my age (because dear Taytay is only 16 days older than me), she might have discovered sex… and possibly even liked it. Never mind that whether that is or isn’t true isn’t ANYONE’S business. But, I digress.
When that song came out she got slack from southern radio stations who said they had trouble seeing her as ‘the girl next door’ because of that lyric. Let me tell you something about the girl next door. If she’s older than 16 she’s probably having sex (with herself if no one else) and just not telling you about it.
So after all that my question is this. Who is to blame here? Yes, I think Taylor is hurting young girls with her ‘my untouched snatch has magical powers’ image but I also think we’re not giving her much of a choice. America demands a steady supply of ‘good girl’ music to spoon feed our youth and will penalize her for any deviation just like it’ll penalize the girls who listen to said deviant music. My big hope is that she can use her power and influence and one day on David Leno have a total Russel Edgington moment.
Except that instead of saying ‘I’m a vampire’ she’d say ‘I have a vagina and It feels good when I touch it and I’m not going to hell for it.’ And instead of ‘we will eat you’ she’d say ‘hey there fans, lock your doors and try it out.’ And instead of ripping someone’s spine out she could just say ‘lets talk about a little thing called the Madonna/whore dichotomy.’
It would be so easy and so awesome.