Will Taylor Swift Ever Be Allowed to Get Mad?
September 13, 2010 2 Comments
Taylor Swift. Why isn’t she mad?
The promoters behind Sunday night’s 2010 MTV Video Music Awards made a big effort to prolong the affects of last year’s Taylor Swift-Kanye West embarrassment.
Now, if you watched two toddlers play and one took something from the other, you’d reprimand the offender. And the child victim would cry. Or grab it back. Or… something. And then they’d be focused on other things.
At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, an older guy took something from a young girl, something she will never get back. He took a moment of her glory. Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift’s award acceptance and belittled the judges choice by declaring that another princess should have had this crown.
Let’s remember – she was 19 last year when she won that award. What are most 19yr olds that you know doing right now? Whether you like her music or not, this is a hard working woman who’s daily life career demands exceeds what many people realize. And in an interview on The View the moring following the 2009 event, Taylor commented that she didn’t have time to be more emotive when it happened, since she had to perform five minutes later. That’s show biz – and Taylor’s ability to roll with it and do her job flawlessly after being thrown this unusual curve ball is a demonstration of professionalism very much underplayed.
When I heard that a song about this regrettable moment was being debuted at the 2010 VMAs, titled Innocent. I hoped it might be interesting. I mean, now time has passed and she can say what she really thinks and feels. I hoped we might see something more of Taylor Swift. She might be something other than an exalted, youthful talent. Maybe her poetic nature could be lasting, that it could mature past crushes and self-centered adolescent concerns. I was hoping she would grab her toy back and smack him with it. I was hoping for substance over style. Silly me. I forgot it’s only 2010.
It sounded like a love song. Barefoot, in a virginal white dress, she forgives him his sin. He did something reprehensible, but he was still a just a boy in a man’s body. And I guess boys will be boys and there’s nothing a sweet young thing could ever do about that? Barf.
So many questions. Indulge me in the rant: What message are we sending? Are we telling her to “shut up and take it like a man” or “to act like a lady”? Why can’t she directly confront him? Why not turn it into a public problem-solving skill display? Why wasn’t there a tense moment is the song? Why did she have the head of a retro pin-up girl and the clothing of a paper doll in its underwear? Do we need her to be both violated and innocent? (Barf again). Are we really raising a young audience to think that looking good is the best revenge? Even worse, looking like Barbie? What about saying something that is meaningful? How about showing some leadership? Where is the fine line between sticking up for yourself and being above it all? Why do we still care about this?
I understand that a Taylor Swift audience is full of young girls who once thought that she was like them, that she was a great contradiction of both beauty and introspective under-dog. For me, this display undermined the girl-next-door humility and turned her into glamourous puppet.
She’s won other awards, and will win many more it seems. So maybe she should have really risen above it all and just played with her other toys and let him have it – but agreeing to appear on this show with this hyped conflict makes it all the wrong kind of showmanship – forced and inauthentic. Let’s all just move on. It would have been far more interesting to see her perform a new, empowering song about self-reliance or remind us that there are a lot of moments in life more meaningful than winning a trophy.
If you want to read the 2010 Innocent lyrics and watch a video of the Taylor Swift’s 2010 performance- go to the source file at mtv.com.
Here’s a little video about the 2009 event:
Thanks for reading. Comments welcome.
*makes music for commoners* Kanye didn’t so much told her she’s talentless has he purposely disrespect the music establishment whose sole aim is the lowest common dominator year after year.
- didn’t know you guys were such conformists.
Thanks for your comment.
I’m not sure that Kanye was making an artistic statement to the music industry – an industry that signs his very large checks. My understanding is that he was drunk and lost his impulse control. Poor form. But this commentary isn’t about whether either of these artists makes good music or who they make it for. It’s about how lame it is that MTV milked this incident into another year and how equally lame it was to have Taylor’s comeback moment be some virginal tribute song forgiving him. Surely an industry full of creative people could have thought of a much less old fashioned and anti-feminist to entertain us with.