Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Swift vs. West: A Never-Ending Feud

Last night at the 2016 Grammy Awards, Taylor Swift won the Grammy for Album of the Year. In her speech, she referred to her seemingly never-ending feud with Kanye West. She said, "As the first woman to win Album of the Year at the Grammys twice, I wanna say to all the young women out there: There are going to be people along the way who will try to [...] take credit for your accomplishments or your fame." Recently, West came out with a song, "Famous," whose lyrics read, "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that b*tch famous / God d*mn / I made that b*tch famous." Swift's response in her Grammy speech is that no man can take credit for her success -- it was her hard work and dedication that got her to where she is.

This article delegitimizes the whole point of Taylor's speech--to empower women in the Entertainment industry. By describing Taylor's accomplishment as "an award that she won over the far more deserving Kendrick Lamar for his brilliant LP To Pimp a Butterfly," The Daily Beast ironically repeats the events of the 2009 MTV Music Awards, when Kanye West interrupted Taylor's speech after winning Best Music Video by saying that Beyoncé had the best music video of all time, when the Swift vs. West feud first began. By responding to this speech about women's empowerment, the media degrades its legitimacy through misogynistic tendencies.

Watch Swift's acceptance speech here:




2 comments:

  1. I watched Swift's speech and found it to be really moving. I am disappointed to learn that critics are delegitimizing her speech that could have otherwise had a major impact.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I watched Swift's speech and found it to be really moving. I am disappointed to learn that critics are delegitimizing her speech that could have otherwise had a major impact.

    ReplyDelete