Taylor Swift’s folklore album was one of her most well received, and she broke from her traditional personal storytelling lyricism by writing stories about other people, both real and imagined. Her song Betty is indicative of this, as it’s written from the perspective of a 17 year old boy named James who’s singing to his ex-girlfriend Betty attempting to apologize after cheating on her over the summer. Three songs on the album, Betty August and Cardigan, are intertwined. Betty is from the perspective of James, August is from the perspective of the girl James cheated with, Augustine, and Cardigan is from the perspective of Betty. I think that the genre is about the sincerity of high school relationships, and that although teenagers are stereotyped as reckless and rash, they feel deeply and we underestimate their ability to navigate their feelings and relationships.
While Taylor Swift has stated that the song is from the perspective of a boy, when it first came out people thought that since Swift is a woman, that the song was from a female perspective. This changed people’s perspectives of the song as that would make it a queer story. Additionally, it’s set in a high school, which is a very impactful time in many people’s lives. It’s when people are figuring out who they are, what their sexuality is, how they identify, all while dealing with growing pains and drama. This high school drama in Betty can be read as a queer story. For example, one line states “I’m only 17, I don’t know anything but I know I miss you”. This could be read as someone who’s discovering their sexuality and possibly being told that they’re just confused or in a phase, and that person rebutting that they know how they feel regardless of what other people say. Additionally, in another lyric, “I was nowhere to be found / I hate the crowds, you know that / Plus, I saw you dance with him”, Swift paints a picture of a heartbroken individual seeing their crush/partner dance with someone else. If this was from the perspective of a girl, it could be read as their heartbreak at seeing their partner assimilate to the pressure to perform as straight at the school dance. Lastly, the line “You heard the rumors from Inez” could be read as rumors about the person’s sexuality. The picture that Swift paints of a fraught high schooler allows the listener to identify with those feelings of angst and confusion no matter how they identify.