Preliminary phase of experiment in online social interaction
Another installment in this (possibly short-lived) experiment I'm conducting where I try to address people nicely who have misapprehensions about Taylor Swift songs.
Here, someone named Arianna applauds Claire Danes and her portrayal of fifteen-year-old Angela Chase in the excellent but short-lived '90s TV show My So-Called Life, then imagines Claire/Angela in other settings, including this:
"2) Claire Danes in a Taylor Swift song:
Some dude puts unwanted sexual pressure on Claire Danes. She smacks him."
So I posted this on Arianna's comment thread:
Hey Ariana.* Not sure what point you're making with number 2. Are you saying that this is what Claire Danes would do if she were playing Taylor or are you saying that this is what Angela Chase would have done instead of what Taylor and the other girls in Taylor's songs did? The thing is, the sexual attention in Taylor Swift songs has always been wanted, though often with ambivalence, Taylor or one or another of her friends wanting the sexual attention but not always knowing how far she wants to take it, and then having complicatedly ambivalent feelings about the romance after it's over, usually. Which may well have been what would have happened with Angela in relation to Jordan, except the show didn't air long enough for the scriptwriters to start working that out. Maybe some of the boys in Taylor's songs should've been smacked early, before things really got going, but I don't see how that would have been better for the songs (you then wouldn't have had Taylor's great responses to getting cheated on or to her or her friends getting dumped), or that Angela would have behaved differently from how Taylor and crew did behave.
[And Dave posted his own response on his Tumblr.]
*EDIT: I misspelled her name when I addressed her.
Here, someone named Arianna applauds Claire Danes and her portrayal of fifteen-year-old Angela Chase in the excellent but short-lived '90s TV show My So-Called Life, then imagines Claire/Angela in other settings, including this:
"2) Claire Danes in a Taylor Swift song:
Some dude puts unwanted sexual pressure on Claire Danes. She smacks him."
So I posted this on Arianna's comment thread:
Hey Ariana.* Not sure what point you're making with number 2. Are you saying that this is what Claire Danes would do if she were playing Taylor or are you saying that this is what Angela Chase would have done instead of what Taylor and the other girls in Taylor's songs did? The thing is, the sexual attention in Taylor Swift songs has always been wanted, though often with ambivalence, Taylor or one or another of her friends wanting the sexual attention but not always knowing how far she wants to take it, and then having complicatedly ambivalent feelings about the romance after it's over, usually. Which may well have been what would have happened with Angela in relation to Jordan, except the show didn't air long enough for the scriptwriters to start working that out. Maybe some of the boys in Taylor's songs should've been smacked early, before things really got going, but I don't see how that would have been better for the songs (you then wouldn't have had Taylor's great responses to getting cheated on or to her or her friends getting dumped), or that Angela would have behaved differently from how Taylor and crew did behave.
[And Dave posted his own response on his Tumblr.]
*EDIT: I misspelled her name when I addressed her.