Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Overthinking Taylor Swift

In an article in People magazine, country-pop singer Taylor Swift claims she was bullied in junior high, on account of liking country music, and not being pretty enough for the "popular girls." Unless they stuffed her head in the toilet after gym class, that's not bullying. And only about five or ten percent of all kids in junior or senior high are not outsiders anyway. There's gotta be a study on it somewhere. But it makes her early years sound more romantic, I suppose. Still, I don't think she ever had a problem with the boys.

Especially not now.

Meanwhile, Overthinkingit.com explores the economic themes in one of her music videos. I kid you not.

[Blonde White Guy] is positioning himself for above-average socioeconomic achievement, but for now, he’s stuck waiting tables to presumably help pay his tuition and support himself. Granted, these two facts aren’t at odds with each other--countless others have gone this route--but presenting them together, along with the way he’s visually depicted as an everyman, speaks directly to Americans’ economic insecurities. He aspires to rise above his background, yet still struggles and lacks any sense of security.

Discuss.
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4 comments:

Banshee said...

What clique girls do is not bullying. It's meaner.

Of course, if you don't care about having a social life with anyone, and nobody gets the bright idea to spread rumors that you're sleeping with a druglord, I suppose this sort of clique thing is less worrying than bullies. I found it so. But very few girls are able to face the prospect of total ostracism and isolation as being a lesser evil than being beaten up.

Of course, nowadays some clique girls do the physical bullying too. Lots of girls with knives and stuff, these days. I guess it depends on what her high school was like.

David L Alexander said...

Suburbanbanshee:

Well, for four years I didn't have much of a social life and I got the crap beat out of me. Had my parents thought of relocating so I could devote my teenage years to payback for fun and profit, she and I might both be seen together on a magazine cover. We may never know. But it's very likely that most of the "clique girls" are already fat, barefoot, and pregnant with their second or third kids. They might even be married, only once. It's stuff like this that makes my high-school reunions more than worth the trip home every ten years.

That's the long version. Here's the short one: Boo. Hoo.

Gail F said...

There are really mean, awful clique girls. It's a fact. It's also a fact that EVERYTHING gets called bullying these days. Like most things, equating all bad things with the worst does the opposite of what people intend -- it trivializes the worst.

David L Alexander said...

Okay, there are mean awful clique girls. I believe it. I don't dispute that. I did dispute equating popular kids not liking you with popular kids beating the crap out of you and getting away with it. The solution? Stay away from mean awful clique girls. Or in the case of the Swift family, relocate. Those little bitches will go to their ten-year high school reunion looking like the skanks they really are. Or, in the case of Taylor Swift, go to her concert a year after she leaves town and grovel for her autograph.

Success is the best revenge.