Tag: Taylor Swift You Belong With Me

For Taylor Swift, “God I Love the English” No Longer Applies

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Having recently opted for “all-American boy” Travis Kelce, it seems the days of Swift’s fetish for British men are over. Though, for a while there, it was going quite strong, starting with Harry Styles in his One Direction era. Swift then moved on to Calvin Harris (who would probably specify he’s Scottish, not British—but still), then Tom Hiddleston, then Joe Alwyn. The latter British bloke being her longest relationship at approximately six years (though maybe less, if one is to go by “You’re Losing Me” being written in early December of 2021). Even so, Swift didn’t seem to be fully convinced she was entirely “over” British peen, briefly dabbling with The 1975’s Matty Healy before quickly realizing how damaging he was to her “brand.” In fact, Ice Spice’s involvement in the entire dalliance (with comments Healy made about Ice Spice on a podcast quickly resurfacing during their time together) appears to be something Swift is still making up for now (after already giving her a feature on a “remix” of “Karma”), carting her along into the multimillion-dollar box (a.k.a. suite) seats she enjoyed while watching “her man” play in the Super Bowl.

And what she’s also apparently making up for is all that lost time without some good old-fashioned American dick in her life. We’re talking the kind of sausage that is as American as they come: an Ohio-born football player for the NFL. As for Kelce’s own recently-ended long-term relationship, it was with sports and fashion influencer Kayla Nicole Brown. Having been with her for five years (albeit on-again, off-again), it seems as though Kelce, too, wanted to make an about-face, “type”-wise. Because yes, Taylor Swift is about as far from a Black woman as you can get. Nonetheless, she’s been doing her best to get as close to one as possible by way of Ice Spice, who is clearly spicing up Taylor’s fucking life more than Travis Kelce. A man that has only served to bland-ify it with his Americanness and general lack of a “cosmopolitan” nature (let’s put it this way: he isn’t going to be putting a dress on or reading aloud from a book of Romantic poetry anytime soon). What her British boyfriends all possessed, even if only by sheer virtue of actually being in the arts as opposed to being football players. And that’s not a trait to be overlooked. For, as Swift saw forever crystallized in a meme of Kelce screaming like a wild animal in his coach’s face, it’s no good when someone has that much sports-driven testosterone coursing through their veins. You never know when it’s going to cause a rage flare-up. Though perhaps Kelce knows better than to fly into one around Swift, lest he risk having his temper tantrum immortalized in a song.

Although Swift isn’t a stranger to dating the all-American boy, including Joe Jonas and a Kennedy (Conor), Kelce is arguably the biggest cliche of what that trope represents. And it’s unlikely that, with future boyfriends, Swift will be able to ever top such a stereotype of what it means to “be American.” Unless, of course, she should decide to go the Lana Del Rey route and date a cop. But no, not even Swift could make cops “chic.” Football, on the other hand, is something easy to breathe life into once more (especially through a highly publicized end-of-game kiss, delivered in a Hollywood ending fashion). After all, it’s no secret that, in the U.S., all of life is just an extended metaphor for high school. Where the jock and the thin blonde girl are treated as royalty while the rest of the “student body” merely looks on with the requisite amount of awe and reverence. Thus, although some might have been growing fed up with Swift’s British bloke fetish, at least what could be said for it was that it didn’t reinforce the already barely latent idea that all the world’s a high school, and those with the “objectively” good looks and wealth are the ones who will be perennially rewarded by society’s capitalist values.

And yet, what’s also rather ironic about Swift’s sudden one-eighty toward embracing the cheerleader role in her football player boyfriend’s life is that she, at one point, viewed herself as someone who was not “football player’s girlfriend” material. In truth, it was the very song about this “difficulty” of hers that put her on the map beyond just the country music radio scene: “You Belong With Me.” In the accompanying music video, Swift plays the so-called dweeb (mainly because she has giant black-rimmed glasses holding her back from being seen as the “hot” girl) who lives across from her “cute” friend. Who, quel choc, happens to be a football player that she can’t seem to attain. Not only because she’s a “nerd,” but because he already has a cheerleader girlfriend (also played by Swift, in a very bad brunette wig…let’s just say she’s not sporting the same quality hair as Rachel McAdams in her ten-thousand-dollar [some even say twenty-thousand-dollar] wig for Mean Girls). Thus, “Nerd” Swift is relegated to the sidelines in a far crueler way than she is now, forced to watch the object of her affection look out toward Brunette Swift instead of her, all bedecked in her marching band attire.

By the end of the video, though, Swift, in the style of a true high school rom-com formula, takes off her glasses, puts on a form-fitting gown and shows up to the prom so that the football player dude can see how “hot” she actually is without her dweeb costume. Naturally, the two end up together. And Swift ostensibly admitted that she was never born for the “unpopular girl” role. Yet she held off for this long on returning to Brunette Taylor status by giving in fully to the high school fantasy/fairytale she conveyed to us long ago in 2008 (though the single and video were released in 2009). One she perhaps tried to stave off for several years with British men, assuring listeners at one point, “God I love the English” on Lover’s “London Boy.” Ultimately, however, Swift has succumbed to her most puerile desires from the Fearless era in seeking out the validating comfort of the all-American jock. And there’s no doubt that Matty Healy helped give her the final push back in that direction. With The Tortured Poets Department slated to be a scathing spotlight on her years spent with Alwyn, listeners will soon know even more about why Swift has returned to preferring her own Uh-muhr-ih-cuhn breed. Cemented by featuring a song on the album called “So Long, London.” De facto “Hello ‘Murica.”

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Genna Rivieccio

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February 14, 2024
On How Vanessa Williams’ “Save the Best for Last” Is the Ultimate “Eh, I Guess You’ll Do” Track

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Echoing Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” long before it ever came out, Vanessa Williams’ hit single from 1992, “Save the Best for Last,” also explores the perspective of a woman waiting for her close male friend to come around and see that it’s she who has been the one all along. Amid his various breakups and complaints about relationships, it was so obvious, at least to Williams, that this man should be with her. Just as it was to Taylor as she insisted, “If you could see that I’m the one who understands you/Been here all along, so why can’t you see?/You belong with me/Standing by and waiting at your back door [a very innuendo-laden lyric]/All this time, how could you not know, baby?/You belong with me, you belong with me.”

Williams feels much the same, also addressing her friend/“love of her life” in the second verse in a similar fashion when she says, “All of the nights you came to me/When some silly girl had set you free/You wondered how you’d make it through/I wondered what was wrong with you/‘Cause how could you give your love to someone else?/And share your dreams with me/Sometimes the very thing you’re looking for/Is the one thing you can’t see.” While that sounds “innocent” enough in terms of the usual plotline about a girl who yearns to make the transition from platonic to romantic with her best male friend, as Williams continues the song, the nature of the relationship suddenly becomes less “fairy-tale” and more, well, kind of pathetic. No wonder so many singers rejected it, as a matter of fact. With the track eventually finding itself in Williams’ hands as, wouldn’t you know it, sloppy seconds because no one else was interested in keeping it around after being offered a turn with it.

Thus, when a song on her sophomore album, The Comfort Zone (what a title, considering “Save the Best for Last” is ultimately all about reverting to what’s “easiest”), needed to be replaced and the composition was presented as a substitute, Williams exclaimed, “I can’t believe nobody wants this song. I have to have this song.” And have it she did, managing to transform it into a number one hit and Grammy-nominated single. Which should give a strong indication of the cornball musical tastes that dominated the early 90s before jaded grunge took over for a brief blip in time.

While Williams (or rather, the “character” she’s portraying in sonic form) sits back and watches this man stick his dick in just about every other woman except her, she naturally starts to lose faith in the idea that they might ever be together. Or, more to the point, that he might ever be capable of seeing her sexually (call it the Keith Nelson/Watts effect before Dawson and Joey existed to eclipse that trope). But, lo and behold, “Just when I thought our chance had passed/You go and save the best for last.” Of course, if we’re being more candid about what’s really happening—in lieu of using Williams’ flowery description of events—the object of Williams’ affection has “resorted” to his female friend, sizing her up and all at once deciding, “Eh, I guess you’ll do. No one else has really worked out for me, so why not give it a go?” She is his last resort, his final attempt at seeing if this “love thing” is real, or if “enduring relationships” are just another myth propagated by previous generations in service of capitalism. Williams, meanwhile, is content to see his decision to be with her as a “belated revelation” on his part as she remarks a second time (for repetition is key to believing), “Sometimes the very thing you’re looking for/Is the one thing you can’t see.” In other words, sometimes you decide to see someone a certain way because it’s more convenient to do that than endure the effort of dating.

Even Williams appears to acknowledge that she’s a bit delusional in how she’s choosing to package this “once-in-a-lifetime” event, at least if the accompanying video is anything to go by. In it, she walks alone amidst a snow-covered landscape as snow also falls softly around her, so as to complement the line, “Sometimes the snow comes down in June” (once more, this is very Taylor Swift-y in tone—and not just because of “Snow on the Beach”), indicating how “special” and “unique” the phenomenon of her friend “realizing” they should be together is. She then passes an ax wedged into a stump, which is something of an odd visual choice that might lead the more “sick-minded” to believe this story could go in an entirely different direction: Williams is going to murder her friend-turned-lover for taking so long to come to his senses about her. That’s the extent of the production value before we see Williams alone in a cozy cabin with a fireplace (let’s not forget: the album was called The Comfort Zone) continuing to muse on how glad she is that things have finally progressed between her and her presumable “best friend.” And yet, if that’s the case, then where the fuck is he in all this? Is this, at heart, just an instance of erotomania being captured on film by the video’s director, Ralph Ziman? One could argue that for sure, or even that the ax shown at the beginning of the video alluded to how she murdered her friend so that she could finally project her emotions onto him and have them returned, propping him up somewhere in the house like Norman Bates’ mother.

Call it far-fetched, but it certainly makes sense considering her admission to years of what amounted to resentful longing in the lines, “‘Cause there was a time when all I did was wish/You’d tell me this was love,” adding, “It’s not the way I hoped or how I planned/But somehow it’s enough.” Damn, talk about the guy settling for second best, not “saving the best for last.” Here, too, the “let me murder and turn him into a ‘flesh doll’” plot definitely has clout, since she couldn’t seem to get him to “understand” that they ought to be together by any other means. Unless, of course, it is as straightforward as the song indicates and he arbitrarily glanced over at her one day and essentially said, “Eh, I guess you’ll do.”

She, in turn, marketed that to herself as a “grand love story” and automatically accepted the “proposal.” And this, somehow, was billed as one of the greatest love ballads of the 90s when, in truth, it’s pretty fucking depressing. A song that’s all about a man being desperate enough to “try” a woman he never would have were it not for his state of defeatedness in matters of love. Not to mention it’s a song that’s generic enough to have been used as the background for a British gravy commercial during the heyday of the single. To be more specific, a Bisto Best gravy granule commercial. Trying its hardest to sensualize the food shown before a disembodied hand starts pouring on the nasty gravy, you guessed it, last. Because, as the ballad teaches us, one should always save the “best” for last. The assumption on Williams’ part being that she and her friend-turned-lover will never separate. But that’s almost as naive as her believing that he “chose” her after all these years out of love rather than simply being out of ideas.

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Genna Rivieccio

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November 30, 2023
“Seemingly Ranch” Taps Into Something Larger: Stale Americana, Mistrust In All Things and Gross U.S. Eating Habits

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The inherent mistrust of our collective society was boiled down to two keywords in a caption on September 25, 2023: “seemingly ranch.” The off-handed comment by one of many die-hard Swifties was made via what will always be called Twitter, through the account, @tswifterastour. Like many accounts, @tswifterastour is run by a fan who takes it upon themself to provide regular updates on the various goings-on (both personal and professional) in Swift’s life. The latest being her apparent transition into the cheerleader she derided on “You Belong With Me” by showing up to Kansas City Chiefs football games to support her current flame, Travis Kelce. In the week since the post went up, Swift has already attended another game (this time with her requisite “squad,” as though to harken us back to her “Bad Blood” era in time for the 1989 [Taylor’s Version] release at the end of October). But it didn’t offer any viral moment on par with what @tswifterastour did by simply writing a “speculative” caption.

A caption that, in fact, speaks to the self-imposed role of “sleuth” that every internet and true crime junkie has taken on for themselves in the past several years. This stemming from the rightful sense of suspicion that has arisen over the decades of lies and assorted “massaged truths” presented by some of the world’s most “reputable” institutions, not least among them being the U.S. government. And while, “obviously,” the white substance on Swift’s grossly-presented plate wasn’t cum, for fuck’s sake, the use of “seemingly” made the ranch come across as though it could be something else (as some outlets have posited). Even some kind of coded message from Swift herself, revered by fans for Easter egg-laying as much as anything. Alas, in a time where everything is questioned (no matter how “self-evident” it might have once been), @tswifterastour’s caption not only makes all the sense in the world, but is a reflection of the present, that’s right, era. That is to say, questioning everything we see as digital manipulation not only ramps up, but becomes more sophisticated thanks to AI.

One thing, however, that has remained “evergreen” in most eras since Adam Smith fucked us all over is the instant swooping in of various corporations (this time, condiment brands) to capitalize on the sudden newfound interest in a product. In this scenario, ranch (which is unfortunate for other condiments if, in reality, it wasn’t ranch at all). From Heinz to Hidden Valley (the OG creator of the dressing), big business has all at once seen the “power of Swifties” yet again. This time in a far more profitable way than Ticketmaster did last year amid the Eras Tour presale fiasco. Even McDonald’s has gotten in on the “craze” with ad copy that reads, “Seemingly Ranch, Definitely McNuggets.” After all, Taylor is the greatest representation of the celebrity-industrial complex since Britney Spears (who has proven she still has quite an effect on product sales if her recent ability to save a fledgling prop shop is any indication). What’s more, businesses are likely relishing (no condiment pun intended) how the word “seemingly” makes it even easier to get away with selling what amounts to artificial food. It’s almost tantamount to the very specific verbiage on beauty labels that say things like, “May reduce dark circles.” Not necessarily, though. Only seemingly. The word is the perfect “asterisk” to defend against any legal blowback. After all, the Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “appearing to be something, especially when it is not true.” That couldn’t describe America itself any better: appearing to be a beacon of freedom when it is anything but.

Which brings us to how “Miss Americana” herself is falling even more into that title as she becomes a fried chicken-eating football proponent who dresses in what looks like the Hooters uniform for a cameo at the game. Specifically, the game where she was eating seemingly ranch. All of this ultimately fortifying what can be called “quintessentially American” propaganda. And, unlike Swift’s one-time collaborator, Lana Del Rey, she isn’t dredging up Americana tropes of the 50s and 60s as a larger statement on decay, but rather, reinforcing what Republicans would call “good old-fashioned American values.” The image of a white blonde girl going to support her white football player boyfriend at the “big game” has summed up that cliche for centuries.

And then there is the proud display of the nastiest-looking plate to consider. Featuring a piece of fried chicken that’s shaped like the turd emoji, positioned near two foul “plops” of her condiments of choice. Clearly, no one thought food styling might be important for any and all images of Swift at this event. And why would they? Americans really don’t care about how things look or taste; they just want to shove some kind of slop into their mouth and call it “nourishment.” Ranch certainly fits that bill. And it’s not surprising that 1) Hidden Valley Ranch is owned by “renowned” bleach purveyor Clorox and 2) ranch would go on to surpass Italian dressing as “America’s favorite” in 1992. After all, why would Americans want anything so natural (minus the corn syrup, of course) and simple as the contents of that style of dressing?

As Swift taps into “American dreams” by way of Abercrombie visions of America (side note: Taylor did model for Abercrombie in 2003, a year she calls “unbearable” [seemingly for the fashion choices] on Midnights’ “Paris”), the enthusiastic reaction to her “football/ranch dressing era” is on par with the reason conservative voters got on board with the “Make America Great Again” slogan. These are the “good, clean” images people, seemingly, want to see. Like Jenna Rink (Jennifer Garner) in 13 Going On 30 conjuring up yearbook-inspired photos for her magazine’s redesign and announcing of the “clean-cut” images, “I wanna see my best friend’s big sister, and the girls from the soccer team, my next-door neighbor. Real women who are smart and pretty and happy to be who they are… We need to remember what used to be good.” And what used to be “good” was always the football player/cheerleader trope. As tried-and-true as mocking a bald woman. Both Swift and the NFL are catering to this old-hat method for their separate reasons—the commentary on “foodstuffs” in the U.S. just happened to be an added bonus for those on the outside looking in at what Americans willingly choose to consume. Not to mention an added bonus for corporations banking (literally) on how Americans don’t question anything they put into their mouth. They honestly can’t afford to. And hey, since all-American, relatable Swift is such a “seeming” fan of ranch and fried chicken, how bad can it be?

Yet no one increasing their ranch consumption wants to acknowledge that while they’ll likely notice signs of it on (and inside) their body, Swift will continue to stave off any traces of unhealthy diet habits by frequenting Body by Simone classes in New York. Such is the benefit of peddling “Americana” while being able to pay to erase its effects on you personally. All under the pretense of being just another “relatable queen.”

But newsflash: there is nothing relatable about the football player/cheerleader (or cheerleader-adjacent) cliche. It only continues to endure precisely because, sadly, people still find it aspirational. Indeed, as Swift has confirmed in many of her lyrics, high school never really ends, having a tendency to, at the bare minimum, rear its ugly head repeatedly in the not-so-coded language of pop culture. And yeah, ranch feels like code for Kelce’s cum in this case, too.

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Genna Rivieccio

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October 2, 2023
SZA’s “Kill Bill” Remix With Doja Cat Opts to Further Elaborate on (Literally) Attacking “The Other Woman”

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In these la-di-da times, it’s increasingly less “kosher” to “come for” “the other woman” in a cheating scenario. Or a scenario in which one is left for another woman before the infidelity occurs (as if). But Doja Cat seems determined to remind women, including SZA, that it takes two to tango, and, regardless of feminism (“or whatever”), the puta involved can very much be held accountable…in addition to being a source of piled-on contempt. While this mode of behavior has been out of fashion for a while as a result of something like “obligatory female solidarity” (i.e., “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women”), Doja Cat bringing it back may very well be a sign of society’s overall regressive attitude toward women at this moment in history. At the same time, who amongst “the women” hasn’t fallen prey to the incensed flames of jealousy that burn eternal whenever thinking of “that bitch” who took “their” man? As though anyone can truly be owned like so much property. But that’s a story (/anti-capitalist rant) for another assessment.

The latest example of such a case of “the catfight” making a comeback was the flare-up between Hailey “Bieber” (but really Baldwin) and Selena Gomez. One that was initiated by Kylie Jenner and Bieber as a result of the former posting a screenshot of her and Bieber’s eyebrows from a FaceTime call three hours after Gomez announced to TikTok that she felt her own eyebrows looked too laminated. In terms of “gauntlets thrown,” it’s utterly innocuous, and also passive-aggressive child’s play compared to the shit that Joan and Bette used to get into. But such is the way of our repressed present, where feigning politeness is firmly billed under the category and as an offshoot of wokeness. But it is not woke at all anymore to exhibit hostile behavior toward “the little bitch” whose pussy redirected your man’s attention away from you. Except in the instance of “Kill Bill,” during which SZA casually mentions by the end, “I just killed my ex/Not the best idea/Killed his girlfriend next, how’d I get here?”

Doja Cat, re-teaming with SZA after 2021’s runaway hit, “Kiss Me More,” chooses to elaborate in more detail on the murder of that new girlfriend via the remix. Which explores the idea of killing said woman in front of her ex for optimal sadism cachet (even though Doja claims it was unintentional to do it in such a manner). Markedly different from the start for wielding Doja Cat’s new verses instead of doling them out in the middle, as is usually the norm for remixes, what truly sets the song apart is Doja’s chipper rehashing of how she ended up killing her ex’s new girl prior to the ex himself. Told over the course of about fifty-five seconds before SZA enters the song to sing her usual chorus, Doja begins, “I know it’s not a really good occasion to be bargin’ in/I couldn’t help but watch you kiss her by the kitchen sink/I swung the door farther open, tippy-toed farther in…” From there, things escalate rather quickly as, per Doja, the other woman turns out to be an uppity bitch about the whole thing, instantly freaking out instead of trying to talk to Doja rationally. And, evidently, the ex stepped out of the room for a moment to add to the other woman’s fear quotient. So it is that Doja continues to describe, “She saw me standin’ by the TV and she wouldn’t stop screamin’/So I tried to be discreet and told her, ‘Calm your tits.’”

Of course, that’s the last thing the emotionally dainty other woman feels like doing, with Doja elaborating, “She grabbed the kitchen knife so I pulled out the blick/Ain’t got it all the time, so thank god I did for this/‘Cause she was seein’ red, and all I saw was you/It happened in a flash when she charged at me/Y’all crisscrossed, saw her fall to the floor/Then you paused there in horror/But that shot wasn’t for her (was it?).” That parenthetical “was it?” arrives as SZA starts to sing, “I might…” This “subtle” question serving to intimate that yes, maybe all along, the shot was as much meant for the new bia as it was her ex. Because, in her mind, it is this other woman who drove the wedge between them. She’s the one who is really keeping them apart. After all, by naively believing this, a girl like Doja or SZA can go on insisting that there’s still hope for her and her ex to be together again.

By blame-shifting most of the responsibility onto the other woman, the Doja or SZA of the equation can therefore conserve some semblance of their “loving feeling” for the philandering cad in question. Even if those feelings of murderous rage tend to linger when an “armistice” is reached after he “acts up” (a.k.a. egregiously betrays her). And yes, we all know Beyoncé still has them despite “forgiving” Jay-Z. Unfortunately for her freedom of expression, such a “beacon of feminism” can’t take it out too overtly on “the other woman,” save for thinly-veiled digs like, “He better call Becky with the good hair.”

Even when fellow “feminist light” Taylor Swift was ultimately denigrating the other woman in 2008’s “You Belong With Me,” it was cloaked behind self-deprecation—talking shit about herself by seeing an apparent lack in what she had (physically) compared to the other girl. Hence, lyrics like, “She wears high heels I wear sneakers/She’s cheer captain, and I’m on the bleachers.” So it was that Taylor played up the vacuous mean girl trope (*cough cough* Hailey Bieber) for her own benefit as well, but through an obfuscated lens.

On “Kill Bill,” both the original and remix editions, SZA and Doja Cat refuse to play that game. Openly maligning the other woman and unleashing a torrent of rage upon her (“casually delivered” though it may be). Some might call that regressive, while others might be relieved that the floodgate has been reopened to hate on the proverbial other woman. Even if both Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber were too chicken shit to fully capitalize on that “sanction” when the opportunity presented itself.

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Genna Rivieccio

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April 17, 2023