Taylor Swift's Blank Space

Director Sut Jhally, in his documentary film, “Dreamworlds 3: Desire, sex, and power in music videos”, analyzes the issue of how women are portrayed in the music world. Jhally, in his film argues how music and media has become a proud industry when it comes to advertising women, all for the benefit of popularity and record sales. Jhally believes these videos both inform and misinform our culture about our dominant attitudes regarding femininity masculinity, sexuality and race. He uses an empathetic tone in order to appeal to pathos, the feelings and experiences in women when he presents video clips that are somewhat offensive to watch as proof that women have become a common necessity shown in music videos. Often presented as being sexually aggressive and submissive, being objectified by men. He also intentionally wants to try to stir up emotions as he introduces song lyrics of women being called inappropriate names and images of women being fondled by men throughout the film. Sometimes, aggressively without consent.

Robin Thicke’s music video to his song “Blurred Lines” avidly contributes to the patriarchy, while portraying sexism, gender standards, and beauty standards. His music video can be analyzed from a feminist theory approach, as it’s evident that his song and video contribute to a patriarchal society and its inherently sexist and sexualized ideologies. The ideology behind the song and music video is purely sexual and about male dominance. The lyrics to the song and actions in the video exhibit extreme over sexualization and objectification of the women. Analyzing this piece of popular culture through a feminist approach opens up a provoking conversation about how popular culture functions in a patriarchal culture. Analyzing pop culture though a feminist theory can allow for a larger variety and more in-depth analysis about the social aspects and political agenda within popular culture.

Taylor Swift likes to invoke a lot of emotion into her music and includes several things she has experienced in her life. One major recurring theme in her songs is love.

Apple’s policies states that the musicians whose music would be used in this three-month trial would not be given any sort of royalties during the promotional period. Swift decided this was not right, and that the policy needed to change. Therefore, she wrote a long and very

In this new album "Everybody here was someone else before,” is the first track song in Swift's album which talks about how everyone is someone fake for the moment or they turn into something they were not before. This switch in genres has showed a more mature side of Taylor swift and has made her album specially different

Taylor Swift, a pop icon and polarizing figure, is often known for her empowering music, feminist attitude, and meaningful lyrics. Many of her fans praise the feminist messages some of her songs deliver, however others say she comes from a position of privilege and only advocates for white women. Still, a common perception of Swift is that she has evolved from an innocent country singer into a more controversial and sometimes provocative pop singer. What is ignored though, is that despite this perception, themes depicted in “old” Taylor’s music still displayed highly problematic concepts about gender, just in less obvious ways. Particularly in her music video for “You Belong With Me,” the audience if presented with a fulfilling love story involving a nerdy girl getting the popular. On its surface, this concept may seem normal, but the narrative of this video unintentionally conveys significant gender issues in today’s society. Thus, through her 2008 music video for “You Belong With Me,” Taylor Swift ironically presents herself as the ideal nerdy girl next door who gets the guy when she suddenly turns beautiful while demonizing a cheerleader, revealing problematic notions of how women are supposed to look and behave in society, as well as reinforcing negative female stereotypes.

Recently, 24- year old country singer/popstar Taylor Swift released a music video “Shake it Off” which was I sort of introduction to her newest album 1989. The video received some backlash for it was seen by many as offensive, and stereotypical to African American Culture. In the video Swift dresses in what some may consider Hip Hop attire, attempts to “twerk” and even has a section where she partially sings as well as raps. She even uses talks about

Or perhaps the real artist, Taylor Swift’s purpose is to show the audience how ridiculous is the media image that has been created on her. It is a warning for both boys and girls, primarily those who are hoping to attract love from boys that love is perpetuated by its tortuousness. It is painful if boys will lose interest, that is Swift’s warning. The song revolves around a message for girls: do not be a daydream dressed like a daydream; do not be a nightmare dressed like a nightmare; do not find out what kind of a girl he wants and be like that forever, do not be heaven, do not be nice, do not be magic, never be too plain or perfect and good. You can also add torture to love and bring darkness to light, it is all about the

This song displays the traditional messages sent by male artists. What about female artists? What do their songs portray? Andsager and Roe’s findings give a good description. According to them, there are two kinds of female artists. The strong, more established female artists portray women as “fully equal.” These women are in their thirties at least, they are more established, and they dress in casual suits. They sang romance, female emancipation, and heartbreak like the rest, but they did not compromise their image in their videos. They use Trisha Yearwood as an example in her song Everybody Knows. The other type, were women who “fell into the lowest level on the consciousness scale.” They used Deana Carter’s song We Danced Anyway as an example. In this song she rolled on the beach in a wet t-shirt. Another one is Faith Hill’s song Breathe. In this song, Hill is seen rolling around in her bed sheets with no clothes on.

Taylor Swift really knows how to have hidden messages and secrets throughout her lyrics and music videos. Taylor Swift also likes to trash talk other celebrities including Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry. Which gives a viewer a good chance to critic her lyrics and videos.

In musical superstar Taylor Swift’s music video for her song “Blank Space,” she is portraying herself as the high maintenance and dramatic girlfriend that the media believes she is. The speaker of this text is the media’s perception of Taylor Swift and her message is about the disconnect between who Swift really is and who the media sees her as. I believe Swift has two purposes for this music video. One is for her character in the music video to warn her audience about the type of love that boys want, and the other for real life Taylor herself to poke holes into the media’s concept of her love life. The video is filled with satire and paradoxes to convince us that our idea of Taylor Swift is not an accurate opinion of her.

Music can have a big influence on society or a person individually, this can be because everyone has personal feelings and perceives music differently. For this song assignment I choose If I were a boy by Beyonce Knowles. I choose this song because of how gender is seen in society and the differences between men and women and it’s impact in our world. The reason this song makes me think in a sociological manner is because we as people don’t know what it is like to be one gender or the other. Also, there are differences between the genders and we blame society for creating these differences, however we don’t actually stop assuming or agreeing with these differences. I think that personally I don’t always understand how there is such a big difference

When I heard about the song assignment the song I immediately thought of the song Different For Girls and how it would relate to the gender chapter. Country is my all time favorite music genre. I knew there would be many country songs to choose from to fit into the gender chapter. I picked this song because I remember the first time I heard it and thinking it was sad how differently boys and girls deal with problems. Our society today has shown that boys need to act strong with little emotions. This song captures how society has reformed how boys and girls deal with emotions. Dierks Bentley’s song is describing the difference between how a girl and a guy deal with heartbreak. I can relate to this song because I have been through heartbreak and the guy dealt with it completely differently from me. He should little emotion and acted as if it never mattered. The song reminds me of how society has created these gender roles and to be a man you have to follow them. According to Conley gender is defined as “a social position; the set of social arrangements that are built around normative sex categories”(Conley 279). The song is showing that based on your gender this is the way you should act emotionally.

Katy Perry, a well-known American pop artist, delivers a message of social awareness in her song and music video titled,“Chained to the Rhythm.” In “Chained to the Rhythm,” the singer asserts that people in American society should not isolate themselves from, and or ignore the problems in the community. Perry encourages her audience to not sit still when an issue arises. Inspiring her onlookers to not stand idly while social injustices occur and to bring about change is the main purpose of her song and music video. Perry uses a plethora of rhetorical devices and appeals between her song and music video to successfully present her message and to get her audience to start making a change.

First, the music video connects with teen girls by using lyrics that question staying in these harmful relationships. Shawn Mendes sings, “And you’re spending all your time in this wrong situation”, to motivate teen girls not to waste their time in those harmful relationships. These motivating lyrics help to encourage teenage girls to remove themselves from these relationships. When Shawn Mendes sings about how she should not waste her time in the wrong relationship, it encourages teen girls to get out of those bad relationships. Second, the music video relates to teen girls by using touching lyrics so that teenage girls realize the harmful relationships, they are in. Shawn Mendes sings the words, “But I can see it on your face when you say that he’s the one that you want”, as encouragement for teen girls to do what they want and leave a relationship if they feel unsafe or do not want to be part of it. Again, these compassionate lyrics inspire teen girls to disconnect harmful relationships, because that is what they should want. When Shawn Mendes sings about how it is obvious that the girl feels unhappy in the situation, it relates to other teen girl’s emotions and interests them to leave those situations. Through the use of concerning lyrics, of questioning and emotion the music video encourages teenage girls to leave their harmful relationships. Shawn Mendes’ “Treat