Taylor Swift Persuasive Analysis

Her clothes accentuate her cleavage or have a sexual shock factor, such as wearing “sequined pasties…[that] coordinate with the rest of her attire”. The vulgar, sexual nature of her raps makes it impossible for her to not receive attention from the media. Another artist, Eve, dresses sexually to accentuate her body and appears in videos with music video models but raps about social issues like domestic violence. By comparing the nature of these artists and their music, Perry tries to show that young girls have very few role models in hip hop that promote positive feminists values and body images. But, she neglects to discuss other feminist artists she mentions in the essay such as Destiny’s Child and Mary J. Blige and how their lyrics and actions in the media allow young black girls to have positive role models that show a woman can be independent, strong, and beautiful in their own way. Perry’s focus on the more sexualized female artists in hip hop and how their shocking appearance and lyrics allow them to be as successful as their male counterparts took away from the development of her argument about conservative artists and their success. By leading the reader to believe that artists are either overly-sexual or conservative, Perry limits how the reader forms an opinion on why or why not young girls’ body image may be threatened by the media and the hip hop

Director Sut Jhally, in his documentary film, “Dreamworlds 3: Desire, sex, and power in music videos”, analyzes the issue of how women are portrayed in the music world. Jhally, in his film argues how music and media has become a proud industry when it comes to advertising women, all for the benefit of popularity and record sales. Jhally believes these videos both inform and misinform our culture about our dominant attitudes regarding femininity masculinity, sexuality and race. He uses an empathetic tone in order to appeal to pathos, the feelings and experiences in women when he presents video clips that are somewhat offensive to watch as proof that women have become a common necessity shown in music videos. Often presented as being sexually aggressive and submissive, being objectified by men. He also intentionally wants to try to stir up emotions as he introduces song lyrics of women being called inappropriate names and images of women being fondled by men throughout the film. Sometimes, aggressively without consent.

Charlotte Church speaks out about this issue saying “The culture of demeaning women in pop music is so ingrained as to become routine, from the way we are dealt with by management and labels, to the way we are presented the public” (Chase par. 9). This leads to questions, for example, must women be sexualized to gain greater earnings? Does sex truly sell? When we examine artists such as Julia Hotter, HAIM, or Polica, we perceive them as strong artists who are unrestricted in their art by their gender or sexuality. However, when comparing their success, sexualized women have dominated the music industry. Chase explains that women are allowed to fill three main roles in modern pop music: One of the Girls’ Girls, the Victim/ Torch Singer, and Unattainable Sexbot. Artists such as Beyoncé would be considered “One of the Girls’ Girls” who are for women power and are considered empowering. Adele is considered a “Victim/Torch Singer” even though she does not use sexuality to sell records, lyrically, she perceives the wronged women and creates a state of despair. An “Unattainable Sexbot” would be, without a doubt, Miley Cyrus, whose main goal is to be the most successful in the music industry by being hyper-sexualized and unrealistic. If an artist does not fit into one of these categories, they generally have a much harder time being one of the most successful in the music

Robin Thicke’s music video to his song “Blurred Lines” avidly contributes to the patriarchy, while portraying sexism, gender standards, and beauty standards. His music video can be analyzed from a feminist theory approach, as it’s evident that his song and video contribute to a patriarchal society and its inherently sexist and sexualized ideologies. The ideology behind the song and music video is purely sexual and about male dominance. The lyrics to the song and actions in the video exhibit extreme over sexualization and objectification of the women. Analyzing this piece of popular culture through a feminist approach opens up a provoking conversation about how popular culture functions in a patriarchal culture. Analyzing pop culture though a feminist theory can allow for a larger variety and more in-depth analysis about the social aspects and political agenda within popular culture.

In 1997, Shania Twain released the song “Man I feel like a woman!”. The catchy melody immediately made this song a huge hit, but it’s the meaning of the lyrics that made it the feminist anthem that is still loved after so many years. The music video itself is empowering as it shows a confident Shania in the spotlight surrounded by her male musicians. However, the lyrics are what this analysis is more focused on. Twain sings about being her true self and letting loose. The song is an example of feminism, because it challenges gender stereotypes, the pressure put on girls to look a certain way and gender norms. The argument will be structured in three paragraphs, each developing on one of the ideas found in the thesis.

In her article “The Venus Hip Hop and the Pink Ghetto: Negotiating Spaces for Women,” Imani Perry argues that the objectification of women in the music industry is normalized in our society. Her purpose is to persuade us that most feminists who fight against the objectification and exploitation of women are ultimately colonized by the sexual fantasies of men. As a law professor at Rutgers Law School, Perry structures her text in a very effective manner. Using a general-to-specific organization scheme, she begins by outlining the recurring image of sexualized women in music videos, then presenting various cases of prominent feminist figures in the music industry.

However, these minor advantages of being female don’t compensate for more significant disadvantages such as being more subject to sexual assault, more likely to live in poverty, and more likely to face job and salary discrimination (Wood & Fixmer-Oraiz, 2017). There is no question that women are devalued and mistreated especially in Western Cultures. Mac Miller has portrayed women to be the motivation of his album. The sole purpose of the album is that he is sharing the experiences he had with women and what it taught him about women. I analyzed that Mac Miller is relating women to the level of a God which he showcases that in the title of the album, The Divine Feminine. Mac Miller constructs the theme of women in his album to be seen as humans and not objects. In the few music videos that he produced for the songs “Cinderella”, “Dang” and “My Favorite Part”, the women that are casted are not dressed provocatively. Other music videos are simply Mac Miller in front of camera singing his music.

This proves that half the demographics do not see the importance of sexual attraction or making themselves centre of attention while with the opposite sex. The girls that I surveyed were older teenagers between the ages of seventeen and eighteen, and these people were all for Lily Allen’s campaign for slamming the sexualised music videos. This shows that the older girls realise, the ideology of being ‘perfect’ does not exist, and these women shown in these videos are not ‘realistic”.

She is a 10 time Grammy award winner, and among the five artists to ever win a Grammy for album of the year she is the only female to ever win more than once. Her hit song “You Belong with Me” resonated with millions of young girls many of which connected with the lines “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”. She turns ordinary teenage girl experiences into fresh country and pop songs. She grew up fascinated by music which led to her success as a Country/Pop artist. She constantly strives to make sure that her fame does not get in the way of her truly being herself. Taylor does not read into any of the articles about her in magazines to avoid getting caught up in all the gossip that publicity spreads about her. Taylor has made a huge impact on music industry, from selling out Madison Square Garden, to record breaking songs and albums. Award winning singer and song writer Taylor Swift, is still forming her legacy as she continues to make history in the music industry, while garnering a large fan base worldwide.

For this journal entry, I chose to compare Audre Lorde's Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference to the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. In Lorde's piece, she talks about how oppressed people are often taught to ignore the fact that they are oppressed. We are taught to handle the difference we face by either ignoring them, copying them or destroying them. Lorde says that society as a whole has failed to see differences as a "springboard for creative change." Her article focuses on the fact that refusing to see creative differences makes it impossible to see the different problems and pitfalls women face. Some problems all women share and other problems all women do not share. For example, the experience of a white woman is different

In the song ‘Blank Space’ by Taylor Swift it talks about the media's perception of a person and how they can manipulate it and turn it into something else. In the song Taylor plea’s when she say’s” I can make all the tables turn rose garden filled with thorns keep you guessing like “oh my god, who is she?” implying that with her façade she can manipulate people. An example of satire she used in her song was “Love's a game, wanna play?” showing humor in what love has become to or what it can turn into. In the end money and fame can make you or break you emotionally and socially.

Recently, 24- year old country singer/popstar Taylor Swift released a music video “Shake it Off” which was I sort of introduction to her newest album 1989. The video received some backlash for it was seen by many as offensive, and stereotypical to African American Culture. In the video Swift dresses in what some may consider Hip Hop attire, attempts to “twerk” and even has a section where she partially sings as well as raps. She even uses talks about

Thesis statement: Taylor Swift is one of the most successful female artists in the world who portrays her personal experiences through her music.

In musical superstar Taylor Swift’s music video for her song “Blank Space,” she is portraying herself as the high maintenance and dramatic girlfriend that the media believes she is. The speaker of this text is the media’s perception of Taylor Swift and her message is about the disconnect between who Swift really is and who the media sees her as. I believe Swift has two purposes for this music video. One is for her character in the music video to warn her audience about the type of love that boys want, and the other for real life Taylor herself to poke holes into the media’s concept of her love life. The video is filled with satire and paradoxes to convince us that our idea of Taylor Swift is not an accurate opinion of her.

In the Ted Talk “We should aim for perfection- and stop fearing failure”, Jon Bowers outlines his argument for perfection. He begins by giving an example of a “small error” that ended up costing Amazon over $160 million dollars. He then lists more examples draws them forward to present his idea of perfection. The examples show how one tiny error can have an enormous impact and he turns to the audience asking “why we cannot achieve perfection?”. He draws the listeners in by giving personal experience in striving for perfection. “Look, a hundred people die everyday due to vehicular crashes. Think about that for a second. That's like the equivalent of four commercial airliners crashing every week, yet we still can't convince ourselves to pay perfect attention behind the wheel. So I teach my drivers to value perfection”. Jon is an educator for professional delivery drivers and has to ensure that they are prepared to handle any and every situation possible.