Author’s Note: For a point of view assignment, I wrote a short story from the point of view of the mean girlfriend in Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me.” Since it’s a long song, just click the song title above to see the lyrics. I tried to base a lot of the story on the song, tying in aspects from the music video, and I got the names from Taylor as herself. The guy who plays the neighbor in the video is actually named Lucas, so I used Luke and I just used Gertrude, or Gigi, just because. (Note: that the stars between the little blurbs of text separate different times and parts of the song.) I also wrote a response to the lyrics which is directly below. At the very bottom after the story, I wrote a paragraph to analyze why I wrote things the way I did in Gigi’s point of view.
I have loved the song You Belong With Me, written and sung by Taylor Swift, since it came out. The lyrics are in the point of view of Taylor, as herself when the neighbor she is in love with is dating a popular girl who isn't suitable for him. His name in the short story is Luke, or Lucas. Taylor sings about how Luke belongs with her and not with his villainous, popular girlfriend. Taylor knows that she has a special connection with Luke, but he doesn’t perceive it yet.
Taylor composes the song so that people can comprehend how strongly she believes that Luke needs break up with Gigi. The listeners interpret the vibe that Luke is a great guy and he doesn’t belong with the mean girl, but he belongs with Taylor because they’re perfect for each other. The lyrics that explain this are, “Hey whatcha doing with a girl like that?,” and “Can't you see that I'm the one who understands you? Been here all along so why can't you see? You belong with me.”
“She doesn’t get your humor like I do,” and, “And she'll never know your story like I do,” tell listeners that this girl, Gigi, doesn’t connect with Luke as Taylor does, because she also sings, “I'm the one who makes you laugh when you know you're about to cry, I know your favorite songs and you tell me about your dreams.” Gigi is bringing him down, when Taylor knows that she could make him happier. When she says, “And you've got a smile that could light up this whole town I haven’t seen it in a while, since she brought you down. You say you find I know you better than that.”
If the song was reversed in Gigi’s point of view, it may talk about how Gigi is annoyed by Taylor’s particular interest in her boyfriend and how Gigi is irritated by Luke. People may not see that Taylor is a great person that Luke doesn't see, but instead see that she is trying to steal Luke away, as Gigi could easily feel threatened by that and see how she could be such an infamous girl. To demonstrate this, I wrote a short story in Gigi’s point of view.
“Lukeeee-booo!!! I cannot believe you said that about me!” I shout through the phone. I pace back and forth across my lux fur carpet while I’m cursing at my boyfriend in my thoughts, but I couldn't discompose myself infront of anyone. Especially him. After all, I’ve been building a picture perfect image ever since elementary school when I was--I couldn’t even think it, there were too many terrible memories connected with my past.
His voice snaps me back to reality. “I didn’t say that, I swear, Gertrude,” he told me. “I’m really sorry to hear that.” His sincere voice was totally forced; I trained the boy well.
“I know you did so do not deny it. And call me Gigi, not that atr--bad name,” I demanded. Whew, I almost said atrocious! Sweet nibblets, I must be my new dumb, dark haired doll now. Right. Not southern bumpkin, not bullied girl. Pretty, poised and polite.
"Sorry, babe," he said again, with his nonchalant attitude.
Ugh. I rolled my eyes. “Babe this, babe that. Call me when you’d like to commit to this relationship!” I screeched at the top of my lungs, so loud it must’ve woken up the neighbors. Then just before I hung up I added sharply, “Admit it.”
I pressed the end button on my cell and tossed it on my bed. Oh my gosh! Boys. They can be so stupid sometimes, like Luke.
* * *
Perfectly poised in my Gucci heels and cream pink cardigan over my flowery lace tank-top, I rode over to Luke’s house in my shiny new convertible to pick him up for school on Monday and I found him talking to that girl, Taylor Swift. I give her a quick once over: geeky glasses, jeans (not designer), t-shirt and sneakers. Ew.
Lukeeee-boo finally noticed me after what seemed like eternity; he got in and I stepped on the accelerator all the way to school. I was calmer after I thought about us dancing perfectly underneath a big beautiful disco ball as the Homecoming king and queen next Saturday.
* * *
“Blue and gold let's go-o-o-o-o! Knights!” I shouted. I gave my best death stare to Luke’s nerd of a neighbor in the band who keeps eying up at my Lukeeeee-booo.
After the game, he’s all sweaty in his football gear and he came up to me while I was standing with Andrew, the guy who consoled me after Luke's and my fight, standing protectively at my side.
"We are through, you hear me, Lucas?" I told him. Then I pointed my perfectly manicured finger at him and poked him with it just to show him I meant business. "And I'm through with you."
He muttered something like fine or whatever as he walked off the field. I thought to myself that he'll come crawling back to me, they always do. Hopefully.
* * *
I was stunning wearing my flaming, revealing, red dress imported from Paris, France and my long, perfect, dark hair was gracefully flowing, in my opinion anyway.
Luke was standing a few yards away and I decided to go and make up with him. “Hey Luke,” I said, sweetly to him as I come up to him. Silently, I ran through the future of this conversation in my head, what I hoped to happen, with him apologizing and us being the Homecoming royalty, slow dancing and then going out to that fancy new restaurant in town...
But instead, he brushed past me and I screamed, "What?!" making a huge scene.
I turned around and to see her standing there in a white cascading dress, where people are even making a path for her! She looked absolutely, positively perfect.
Luke was already going over to that Taylor Swift when I turned to grab his wrist, when he was already gone. It made me furious. He left me for a geek?! Shake it off, Gigi, I thought to myself. Whatever.
I figured that Gigi would be the typical from-a-movie-set vile, shallow, popular girl who is only beautiful on the outside, yet has a reason for covering her true self up behind makeup and designer clothes. What if there was something deeper that the song never captured? Like in Geek Charming, starring Sarah Hyland, who starts off really girly and catty, but when she makes a film with Matt Prokop's character, Josh, he discovers a total divergent person.
Why couldn’t Gigi be someone like Sarah’s character? Well, they both can’t show off their true personalities if they’re supposed to be diverse people on the outside. Gigi disguises herself like in the lyrics, “But she wears short skirts,” and in the music video, Gigi always has this snarky little grin on her face. You can see her body language really sets off that she’s in charge and no one will get in her way. Of course, people don’t actually know this for sure, though since it’s originally in Taylor’s point of view, there’s no certainty that Gigi is a good person deep down, it’s what I created. Taylor’s point of view made Gigi look bad, when really, if it was switched around, it may have varied inversely.
