Taylor Swift's "Love Story"

Recently, whenever I think of fairy tales, I think of Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.” This unconscious association is troubling mainly because I know that “Love Story,” is missing many of the key elements of fairy tales, including magic. Nonetheless, I cannot seem to stop my brain my connecting fairy tales to “Love Story.” I think this happens for two reasons. First, the majority of fairy tales are stories about young men and women and their difficulties finding love. Similarly, “Love Story,” Swift’s modern retelling of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” follows a young man and woman in their desperate attempt to date and marry against their parents’ wishes. Secondly, the male characters in fairy tales are often active as opposed to their female counterparts, which are often passive. In “Love Story,” Swift sings, “Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone/I’ll be waiting;” in addition, she sings: “Romeo save me I’ve been feeling so alone.” In these lines, Juliet is the passive recipient of any and all affection Romeo is willing to give her. He is capable of saving her while her salvation can only come through him. One aspect of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” that Swift doesn’t translate to “Love Story” is the ending. In many of the fairy tales we read in the beginning of the semester, the young couple does not experience a “happily ever after” ending. This is similar to Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” in which both Romeo and Juliet commit suicide and other postmodern fairy tales. However, in Swift’s “Love Story” the couple lives “happily ever after,” an ending typical of Disney’s fairy tales.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xg3vE8Ie_E