Something Important

Yeah, they were only saving Beyonce's award for the Best Overall category...and yeah, it was the VMAs, so who cares...but Kanye was right, Beyonce's video was better. Its minimalist approach highlighted the retro-funky wardrobe and choreography, subtle but effective fluctuations in lighting and camera angle, and Beyonce's talents as a dancer and singer. In comparison, Taylor's video was kid stuff - and weirdly insidious.

Go ahead, refresh your memory. The setup is an old standard: nerdy girl likes popular guy, but popular guy is going out with popular girl. The video adopts the Superman-Clark Kent conceit that a pair of glasses makes someone totally unrecognizable. Thus we are expected to buy Taylor Swift, adored superstar, as a natty bookworm. But the story's ostensible thrust, that brains and good intentions trump looks and popularity, is undercut by the presence of the immediately recognizable and lovely Swift as the plain girl. For other examples of the same phenomenon, see Rachel Leigh Cook in She's All That or Mandy Moore in A Walk to Remember. Even the creators of Ugly Betty, while daring to cast the non-bulimic America Ferrera in the title role, didn't go near a real uggo.

Why should we care? Consider this passage from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five:

The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low.

But the Gospels actually taught this:

Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected...

The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being of the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought...

Oh, boy -- they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!

And then that thought had a brother: "There are right people to lynch." Who? People not well connected.

Replace "well connected" with "pretty" and you have the "You Belong with Me" video. Before you ostracize someone, make absolutely sure she isn't pretty. They sure picked the wrong girl to ostracize that time - Taylor fucking Swift! But there are right people to ostracize: real ugly people.

"You Belong with Me," like She's All That and A Walk to Remember, would like to say that beauty is more than skin deep, but its presentation of ugliness is not even skin deep. In all of these stories, the female lead's physical beauty is an open secret. The glasses act as a token disguise that fools the other characters (maybe, this is never clear) but not the audience. Interestingly, aggressive makeup and black hair dye make a much more effective disguise - at first I didn't recognize Swift as the hated girlfriend (yes, that's her too). You could argue that that's because Swift's real-life persona is actually closer to nerdy-sweet than bitchy-chic, but I think a more pertinent explanation is that the video's narrative flow and commercial viability depend on Swift being recognizable as the hero, but not necessarily the villain. In any case, evil Taylor's over-the-top makeup and wardrobe choices (her prom dress doesn't have nipple holes, but it might as well) just underline the importance of appearances in the video's world.

Indeed, the story's turning point is expressed visually as well. As Taylor arrives at the dance glasses-free, the camera lingers for a closeup on her soon-to-be boyfriend's unmistakable expression. Swift's beauty, obvious to us all along, is fully revealed to him for the first time. And with appearances perfectly in sync with the truth of things, the story can end. Pretty girl gets pretty boy, mean-looking girl is shunned, and all is right in the universe.