Taylor Swift- Love Story

'Love Story' by Taylor Swift has been named one of the biggest selling albums of all time. The music video of this song is inspired by the Shakespeare story of Romeo and Juliet, but this story has a happy ending. The single was released in September 2008 by Big Machine Records and was the lead single from her second studio album 'Fearless'. The music video is the key factor that contributed to the songs success as it showed a traditional story of love and captured the hearts of teenage girls wishing to be the character Taylor Swift plays in her video, making teenage girls the main target audience which is typical of this genre of music. The use of a narrative within the music video is common and effective in music videos of this genre (pop/country/indie). A popular convention used in this video is the use of slow motion, slow motion is used to develop the narrative and characters feelings as well as match with the speed of the song. This video goes against usual 20th century videos and theorists such as Laura Mulvey who states that music videos are from the 'male gaze' exploiting women in a sexual way. This video is far from that as Taylor swift is seen looking very natural and innocent, and the story conveyed is one of love not sex. This is typical of the genre of music as they are usually love songs, not just sex related. 

Because the genre of this music video is country style, the language used fits that genre as it is polite, unoffensive language, conventional of a country music video. As stated above, the ideology of this music video is to represent the Shakespeare story of Romeo and Juliet, a story of love. Love is the main theme throughout the song, which is rare in modern day music as usually songs are about sex and lust not love, this link to the media theorist 'Laura Mulvey', who claims that all music videos are portrayed through the 'male gaze', which means that the video is shot through the eyes of a heterosexual man, therefore portrays women as sexual objects. However although there is no physical acts of sexual behavior being shown in this music video there is still symbolic elements that are provocative, for example there is a close up on Taylor Swifts face (main character) and she is holding an open fan covering her face so that only her eyes can be seen, although this does not look provocative, the meaning behind it is, as women would open their fan in the presence of a man that she would want to 'make love' to, to let him know how she feels and what she wants, therefore the fan acts like a provocative invitation.

The opening shot of the music video is a long shot that establishes the setting, which in this case is a school. The setting of the school is also shown through the use of props in relation to  mise-en-scene as the main character/artist, 'Taylor swift', is holding books and school folders which is what you would typically see a student holding, therefore creating realism and verisimilitude within the narrative. The structure of the music video is effective as although the story follows a linear narrative, parallel to this we are shown a story of what she is imagining in her head of what she wants to happen. Costume is used effectively to determine which is reality and which is in her imagination, as in the clips of reality everything is modern day, the characters are wearing jeans,T-shirts and casual clothing, where as in the clips of imagination the characters are wearing old fashioned long dresses and suits like a fairytale. The imagination side of the narrative follows themes from the classic novels 'Pride and prejudice' and 'Romeo & Juliet', even within the lyrics there is a reference to her being 'Juliet' and the boy she is in love with is her 'Romeo'. In the narrative there is a clip of the characters at a big old fashioned dance, this is symbolic of the big ball/party the characters have in the novel 'Pride and Prejudice' as they are wearing the same types of costume as well as dancing in the same way.

Although the song has a slow beat to it, the editing is quite quick, this is unconventional as usually in a music video the edits match the speed of the song. However sometimes conventions are broken for effect or to follow the narrative, in this music video the fast edits could relate to the narrative, as the love of the two characters developed quickly and they are both feeling a rush of emotion at the first sight of seeing each other, also the fact that most of the narrative is set in the main characters imagination, she is imagining their lifetime together in the space of a few seconds of first seeing the man she loves, so the editing could represent the speed of her imagination.