INFOGRAPHIC/ARTICLE: Why Taylor Swift Offends Little Monsters, Feminists, and Weirdos

[Ryan Goble]

Came across this old blog "Why Taylor Swift Offends Little Monsters, Feminists, and Weirdos" this week. The essay was written after the whole Kanye/VAM/Swift incident in 2009 and Swift's winning of a Grammy in 2010. It is fairly well written, not at all something students can read in class but loaded with ideas that would make a great springboard to an interesting lesson. It would be especially powerful if students did some compare and contrast with other female artists.  At any rate this passage gives you a sense of the blog -

Rather than choosing an established/evolved talent (Beyoncé) or a revolutionary (Lady Gaga), the Grammys chose someone who, according to her lyrics, has spent her entire life waiting for phone calls and dreaming about horses and sunsets.

Though the debate over her performance skills is a well-beaten horse at this point, her unequivocal worthiness as a role model for girls has been accepted complacently; at least within my limited purview.

Listen up; if I ever get my life together enough to reproduce other life forms, they will not be joining Taylor Nation - they will be brave, creative, inventive, envelope-pushing little monsters who will find a pretty, skinny white blonde girl in a white peasant shirt strolling through nature-themed screensaver-esque fantasylands singing about how "when you're fifteen and somebody tells you they love you, you’re gonna believe them" not only sappy, but also insulting to their inevitable brilliance.

The best part about the article was this excellent (and humorous) infographic that would certainly be a great model for looking at and comparing the messages, sophistication and themes of a wide range of poets, writers and musicians.

From: http://www.autostraddle.com/why-taylor-swift-offends-little-monster...