O.K. This past weekend was 4th of July (aka America’s birthday). This meant a weekend of celebrating our freedom from oppression and loving democracy. For me personally, this meant a 5 hour car ride (which took 8 and ½ hours – thank you lousy road construction in Indiana) and plenty of time scanning radio stations trying to sooth my desire to flip off the jerk that waited until the last possible minute to cut everyone off and merge left, thus, almost causing an accident.
Anyway, as I was driving back from Michigan I came across radio stations playing John Mayer’s "Half of My Heart" approximately 40 million times. I LOVE that song. Naturally when the radio personality informed me that it was in fact a duet between John Mayer and Taylor Swift, excited doesn’t even cover how much I really wanted to see the music video for this song.
So, I hurried home with the intention of finding this song on YouTube and playing it over and over again. What I found on YouTube, however, was a music video that got me asking some serious questions. First of all, where is Taylor Swift? In the music video she is singing along with John but she is never shown. Do we really live in such a male dominated society that when women work on projects they don’t even have the right to be seen and recognized fully for their contributions???
Furthermore, if you look at a vast majority of John Mayer’s songs, including "Half of My Heart," you will notice a vivid pattern. This pattern generally involves a guy who falls madly in love with a woman who, towards the end of the song (or maybe even sooner), breaks his heart into a million pieces and makes it so that the man is not able to love anyone ever again. At this point, I hope that readers can see the over dramatic sarcasm in my writing because it’s not like a woman has EVER had her heart broken by a man before….
My issue here is not that John Mayer makes songs about love, despair, and heartbreak. What bothers me is the fact that in almost every song he sings, it’s the woman who walks out on the wedding or destroys the perfect love that the charming couple once had. Where is the man in all of this??? Oh that’s right, he’s in the corner sulking about his broken heart… Wouldn’t that time be better spent trying to work out any problems in the relationship or just moving on?
Bottom line: John, you have perfect hair and a beautiful voice; now, let’s work on some good old fashion equality, shall we?
two weddings and some feminism
14 years ago
maybe Taylor Swift had a scheduling conflict. maybe she didn't want to be in the video at all. maybe the director wanted it to be all about John. I'm betting if she were in the video, you'd find something else to complain about (the video objectifies Taylor, is offensive to women, etc.)
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