Taylor Swift's "Fifteen" Challenges the Norm

           Many critics of Taylor Swift condemn her for her purportedly psycho crazy girl-ness or what some assume to be her lack of musical talent. Regardless of these criticisms, however, the reality is that Taylor Swift has put out a variety of songs that resonate with adolescents’ and their experiences with relationships. She’s unique by not only imparting the fairytale aspects of relationships, but also recognizing the difficulties and struggles that accompany these relationships. Particularly, her song and music video for “Fifteen” imparts the naivety that many people that age have with regards to love, and how this can often lead to heartbreak.

            This is an era where it is especially difficult to find media content that recognizes the emotional and physical consequences of sexual behavior, which then has the potential to be especially detrimental to the youth who are avid consumers of media. Exposure to sexually degrading music is associated with earlier sexual intercourse, and 2/3 of popular songs include degrading sex (Brown, Keller, & Stern, 2009, 12). Clearly then, the majority of songs the youth are exposed are inciting this problematic behavior. However, in my opinion our media world doesn’t have to be this way. Studies have found that television has the ability to teach the risks and responsibilities that come with sexual activity in a way that adolescents can identify with (Collins, Elliott, Berry, Kanouse, Hunter, 2003, 1119). The first step in this happening is having media producers recognize the necessity of these different images that may counter the normative tendency to put out airy content, that ignores repercussions. However, in my opinion, it’s a necessary step that needs to be taken in order to have an informed youth populace, who will inevitably shape future generations.

            With this in mind, I want to praise Taylor Swift for her approach to the song and music video of “Fifteen.” The song and video deal directly with not approaching love and sexuality blindly because it could very well result in emotional pain. Research has found a predominant belief that messages found in song lyrics do impact behavior (Bader, 2007, 145). With this in mind, Taylor Swift may be doing good work with this song in counteracting the preeminence of degrading music, and putting out a song that could positively impact listeners’ behavior. In other words, Taylor Swift may very well be answering the call to action to not be ignorant of sexual consequences. She may not be the most appealing individual to much of society, but Taylor Swift’s ability to recognize the necessity of honesty and openness in sexual and romantic relationships in “Fifteen” is admirable.

References:

Bader, A. (2007). "Love will steer the stars" and other improbable feats: Media myths in popular love songs. In M.-L. Galician & D. L. Merskin (Eds.), Critical thinking about sex, love, and romance in the mass media (pp. 141-160). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Brown, J. D., Keller, S., & Stern, S. (2009). Sex, sexuality, sexting, and sexed: Adolescents and the media. Prevention Researcher, 16(4), 12-16.

Collins, R. L., Elliott, M. N., Berry, S. H., Kanouse, D. E., & Hunter, S. B. (2003). Entertainment television as a healthy sex educator: The impact of condom-efficacy information in an episode of Friends. Pediatrics, 112(5), 1115-1121. doi: 10.1542/peds.112.5.1115