Taylor Swift premiered her latest video for her current single, “Mean,” where she hits on a topic familiar with many teens: bullying.
The video, directed by Declan Whitebloom, opens to Swift strumming a banjo as she plays at the Orpheum Theatre with a front porch background, according toMTV News . The video follows three misfit teens, who ultimately do overcome and become successes.
The first teen is a boy bullied by the football team because he’s not into sports, but he is into fashion.
The next teen is made fun of for her job at a fast food restaurant because she has to wear an embarrassing outfit as part of her job. The girl, however, doesn’t give in, she saves all the money earned at the job to put towards college.
The third girl is rejected from the “cool kids” table, according to MTV. She resorts to eating her lunch in a bathroom stall.
Swift, who mimics the single’s cover art, is tied to railroad tracks with a train racing from the background. She is laughed at and mocked for not being able to break free.
By the end of the video, the boy becomes a fashion designer, the fast food worker graduates from college and becomes an executive, and the third little girl watches on as Swift now performs on a Broadway stage.
Back in October, prior to the release of her album, Speak Now, Swift talked to E! Onlineabout “Mean.”
"When you do what I do, which is you put yourself out there for a lot of people to say whatever they want...there's a million different opinions," she said. "I get that, no matter what, you're going to be criticized for something, but I also get that there are different kinds of ways to criticize someone. There's constructive criticism, there's professional criticism—and then there's just being mean. And there's a line that you cross when you just start to attack everything about a person."
Swift isn’t the only artist to try to empower her fans through music. Lady Gaga says it is okay to be yourself with “Born This Way,” Katy Perry urged her fans to be the best they can be with “Firework,” and P!nk encouraged her fans to be “F—in' Perfect.”
Watch the music video for “Mean” below, courtesy of MTV.com:
April Chieffo
