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1. Lewis Thompson, Miss Di Ponio.
Key Concepts
The music video for Taylor Swift’s ‘You Belong With Me’ music video is in
essence a movie condensed down into just over 4 minutes. The music video
shows an ordinary girl and her desire to be with a Jock at school, who
appears to see her nothing more than a friend. Taylor plays two characters
in the video, the main girl and the jocks boyfriend. I believe that this conveys
she is always a ‘with’ him, although he doesn’t know it. It also gives the sense
that they are two extremes of what a person can be.
The video starts with a wide shot of two houses basically side-to-side, giving
a sense of something close knit (their relationship). We then see a pan of the
main male character walking past his window, and the female in hers,
staring openly at him with a smile. They each have a notepad, and
communicate to each other through this. While communicating, Taylor’s
character begins to write the words ‘I Love You’ - but before she can show it,
he has closed the curtains. She holds it up and sighs. The notepad is definitely
the significant piece in this film, as it also appears at the end, when the
couple reunite.
The next shot is the typical thing we expect teenagers to do when bored or
trying to let off steam (which in a way her character would be after that
frustration), dancing around your room. As well as this, Taylor’s character
changes outfits while singing the song to her reflection in her dressing table
mirror. During this scene, the male hears her singing in her room, and
sneakily draws back his curtain to peak on her dancing around her bedroom.
He gives a smile and laughs, before closing the curtains again. The curtain in
my eyes conveys the barrier between both of the characters, if it wasn’t there
he would have seen her writing and so on.
The following scenes are more about developing character styles. We see
Taylor’s character sitting on a bench buried in a book, wearing glasses- all
the indications of a typical ‘geek’. The male’s character is very laid back, in
jeans and a T-shirt. A red car drives up and we are now introduced to
another character. This female is also played by Taylor, and is in every way
opposite to Taylor. The central character is blonde, whereas the other is
brunette (going against the typical popular blonde school girl scenario) and
wearing a significant amount of make-up. As the guy says bye to the female
protagonist, she sighs a little and stares at the girl. We next see the brunette
and the male kissing rather passionately, stating their relationship.
However, the brunette pulls him into the kiss by the collar and grins at the
girl, showing she is just basically showing off- trying to upset her. We then
see a football match, beginning to develop the male’s character. He is on the
football team, a typical popular jock dating the head cheerleader. The main
character is on the ‘bleachers’ as a trumpet player. Throughout this scene as
we see all three characters doing their ‘thing’ - the blonde basically serenades
the male, throwing her arms around in the air, not even playing her
instrument.
In short, the next few shots show them back in their houses communicating
through the use of the notepad again, bringing back the sense of the centre of

2. Lewis Thompson, Miss Di Ponio.
the whole story. The male asks the female if she is going to the school prom,
and she replies ‘No, studying ’. He replies ‘Wish you were.’. This is a clear
indication of their feelings for one another, yet it seems that nothing is
actually going to be done about it.
The final scene is the prom, where the two characters eventually reunite. The
video only slightly follows the typical romance plot (meet, get together,
conflict, break up, get together) as they do not break up, or get together at
any point during the video, but there is that sense of longing for each other
deep down. The notepad makes an appearance here too, where when the girl
decides to turn up, looking extremely beautiful in a long flowing gown
(where everybody finally notices her, relates to the issue in society today
about looks) and captures the males heart. They both take out a piece of
paper with ‘I Love You’ written on it, and lean in to kiss, as she whispers the
words “You Belong With Me”.
This video is definitely targeted at a teenage audience, as it deals with all of
the issues that happens in our day-to-day lives. The use of the notepad as
something symbolic is really clever as it is just an everyday thing that we
would use in school becoming something so much more. In my eyes they used
the notepad because during your school years if you have a crush there is the
tendency to scrawl all over it with ‘I love you’ and so on. The setting is also a
clear give away of a teenage film, a school. There are also the stereotypes
that we associate with, and see daily in our lives. Because we see them and in
effect some of us are these types as I mentioned previously, we connect to
and can draw our own ideas about the film from that.
Word count: 900 Words.