Here at Velociriot, we’ve done our fair share of criticizing pop superstar Taylor Swift. In general, Swift’s lyrics and overall image present a lot of problems in regards to slut-shaming and empowerment of young girls. Her music focuses almost explicitly on her relationships with men, and she presents the viewpoint that only “good girls” deserve “good guys”, but “good girls” are usually passed over for “bad girls” (see Payge’s post on “girl power pop music” for more on this supposed dichotomy).
Swift has been criticized since she first started singing about the teardrops on her guitar for being an atypical, whiny girl. She was the youngest singer/songwriter ever hired by Sony/ATV Music publishing house when she was just 14, and dropped her first album at the age of 16. They say that it’s best to write about what you know — and for a teenage girl, what one knows is romance, friendship, and drama. Swift is now 23 and still writing about similar subjects, but that shouldn’t be all that surprising, upsetting or confusing.
Here’s the thing. Taylor Swift is a pop superstar, and much of her image is hand-crafted by a marketing team that is helping her sell a particular image. A large part of that image is the sweet, romantically wronged 20-something who isn’t afraid to name names when it comes to calling out guys who’ve committed slights against her. The concept of “kiss and tell” comes into play here — it’s childish to name-drop in order to make the world hate someone, but Swift started performing in adolescence. Furthermore, the move to mention not one, but multiple ex-boyfriends by name (whether in lyrics, interviews, or other public forums), is a great marketing move.
It’s also pretty brave, for a 20-something girl, to pinpoint the men who have hurt her. We’ve written a lot about rape culture and victim-blaming on Velociriot. In a society that bemoans the “loss of potential” for convicted rapists and insists that women and girls are “asking for it” by daring to have even a single sip of alcohol on a night out with friends, it’s empowering to see someone like Swift who’s not only talking about the problems she’s had with men, but singling them out for their behavior. To my knowledge, Swift has never been a victim of sexual harassment or assault — but that doesn’t lessen the power in wielding a name like a weapon in a culture that consistently silences women who attempt to speak up.
On Wednesday, Aug. 21, comedian Kurt Braunohler contributed to The A.V. Club‘s “HateSong” series, discussing why he hates Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”. For those who don’t know the song, it details an on-and-off relationship of Swift’s that makes the ex-boyfriend in question sound like a major douche. He picks fights, makes fun of her taste, and generally sounds like someone no one would ever want to date. Check out the video below:
Now, the brunt of Braunohler’s issue with the song is that he thinks teenage romance is irrelevant, but more than that, he thinks teenage girls are irrelevant. (This is the kind of behavior that inspired the riot grrrl movement in the early 90s, for the record. Teenage girls are not unused to being written off by the rest of the world, and especially smarmy men.) There are several points he makes during his explanation of why he hates Swift’s song that deserve addressing, but we’ll list just a few.
- Braunohler doesn’t like “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” because it gets stuck in his head.
The makings of a well-constructed pop song are that it’s — well, popular. These songs are meant to get stuck in your head and make you learn all the lyrics whether you want to or not, because you just can’t stop singing them. Braunohler has every right to dislike this song and to find it annoying, because it is very catchy and kind of repetitive — but could it be possible that Swift’s earlier-mentioned marketing team maybe had something to do with that fact? You can’t ignore something that won’t leave your head, can you?
- Braunohler doesn’t like “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” because it talks about romance from the perspective of a young girl.
Actually, he calls Swift “a little girl” and continuously refers to the material for this song as “teenage romance”, despite the fact that this track is from Swift’s 2012 album Red, meaning she was in her 20s when she wrote it. She’s not a teenager, nor is she a “little girl”. His exact words are:
“First of all, I dislike Taylor Swift. I dislike hearing about teenagers’ romances, because I think they’re dumb and shallow and are, essentially, meaningless. It’s like, ‘Well, get a little bit of experience and then complain about real pain.’ And then, also, there’s the chance that the song is about John Mayer, so then I have to think about two things that I hate. I have to think about Taylor Swift, this little girl that is a billionaire who I think writes about bullshit, and then I have to think about fucking John Mayer who is, I think, reprehensible. Then you have to think about John Mayer’s dick going anywhere near Taylor Swift….”
As I mentioned above, the content of Swift’s lyrics is often problematic, as is the image she presents in her music videos, etc. But to call what she writes about “bullshit” is to deny several things that are relevant and important. First and foremost, being a teenager is difficult. Delegitimizing teenage romance and emotion is outrageous, because it’s these experiences that often shape who we become as adults. Furthermore, high school is lauded as “the best four years” of someone’s life in popular media as well as in conversations with older generations. So to a teenager, “experience” and “real pain” are what they are living as teenagers. The argument that Swift — or any teenager — is too young to experience real love or real suffering is, honestly, ignorant. “Real pain” could be anything from mental illness to family instability to romantic heartbreak. It’s relative, and teenagers experience a lot of it, all the time.
Secondly, there’s some blatant misogyny happening here. Braunohler seems especially vehement about his hatred of this song because it is a song by Taylor Swift, a young and successful woman who dares to belittle men. “How dare she! Her experiences are irrelevant! She’s a little girl who doesn’t know real pain!” Infantilizing Swift does little to discredit her and far more to discredit Braunohler, whose opinion seems to routed in a dislike of teenage girls rather than just teenagers.
Of course, The A.V. Club eggs Braunohler on, telling him how “precious” the music video is and asking further questions about why he dislikes Swift. He says she’s vapid and that she doesn’t seem interesting at all, that he’s “sure dating her is like talking to a white sheet of paper with a little bit of vanilla ice cream on it that doesn’t say anything.” He also says that he’d rather die than live in a world full of Taylor Swifts, and makes a lot of disparaging remarks about youth culture and the prevalence and sway of young people’s opinions on popular culture. He acknowledges that youth culture as a driving force is not a new thing — not by any stretch — but is quick to condemn current culture as being too driven by preteens on social media.
Given that this interview is happening with The A.V. Club, that’s pretty funny. It would appear that Braunohler doesn’t think anyone under the age of — 40? How old is this guy? — has any relevant opinions about anything. (But notice that his Wikipedia page has hardly any information and not even a picture. Yet he’s concerned about relevance? Hmm.) And he has some other qualms about age, too.
- Braunohler doesn’t like “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” because whether it’s about John Mayer or Jake Gyllenhaal or someone else, it’s about someone who dated Taylor Swift.
In his own words,
“Keep your old dick out of teenage pussy! What the fuck are you doing? What are you people doing? You. Are. Adults. You live in the real world! Jake Gyllenhaal, John Mayer, all these people who have dated Taylor Swift: What are you doing?! Do you go to college campuses and cruise for chicks? Are you that weird and fucked up and pathetic? You’re dating a 21-year-old! Why?! Do you know what a 21- year-old is like? They’re essentially mentally disabled. You don’t become a fully-formed human as a female, or even a male, until you’re at least 30. So you are just an idiot. Why would you want to date an idiot?”
There are a few issues at hand here, all of which are pretty gross. First of all, the ableist language is unnecessary and incredibly harmful. By comparing 21 year-olds to people with mental disabilities within this context, he’s implying that people with mental disabilities are unable to form mature and meaningful relationships, which is blatantly untrue. He’s also saying that anyone who chooses to date a person with a mental disability is an idiot. In attempting to call out Mayer and Gyllenhaal for dating Swift, he ends up saying that people with mental disabilities are not fully-formed humans. Say what? These comments are gross and uncalled for and to be frank, the most distressing part of the entire post. If I had any respect for what Braunohler was saying before (I didn’t), it would have all disappeared with these comments. Ableism doesn’t make anyone seem mature. It just makes it apparent that they’re disgusting.
Furthermore, by laying all of the “blame” for these relationships on the men involved, Braunohler is completely taking away Swift’s agency. He makes disparaging remarks about age difference that seem to suggest that she had no choice in dating these men — that they went “cruising for chicks” and picked her up. This image is disturbing and extremely reminiscent of rape culture. Swift is well beyond the age of consent, so what’s the problem? Apparently, the problem is that she had choice in the matter. It wasn’t just men choosing Swift, it was Swift choosing men. And that might be a bit too much for Braunohler.
In conclusion, Braunohler’s upset because youth culture is what drives the market. There’s a reason boybands like One Direction have been promoting Ritz crackers, after all. And he thinks teenage girls are stupid and can’t possibly be in charge of anything. Smells like a good old combination of jealousy and misogyny to me.