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In all the controversy surrounding country artist Taylor Swift‘s recent “Best Female Video” honor at the MTV Video Music Awards, during which rapper Kanye West infamously preempted Swift’s acceptance speech to declare that “Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time,” there seems to have been precious little conversation about Swift herself, let alone the song that won her the award, “You Belong with Me.” Even on her turn as Saturday Night Live‘s celebrity guest host, her endearing, self-deprecating monologue said more about West and about her highly publicized telephone breakup with teen pop star Joe Jonas than about music.

It’s too bad, because Swift, who turns twenty next month, is on her way to building a history-making musical career. Her 2006 eponymous debut album has spent longer on the Billboard 200 album chart than any other album released this decade, also surpassing the previous decade’s 151-week run of Shania Twain‘s wildly popular Come on Over, still the best-selling album of all time by a female musician (and the gold standard for country crossover success). Meanwhile, “You Belong with Me” was the second country song ever to reach #1 on Billboard‘s Mainstream Top 40 song chart (the magazine’s primary pop-focused chart), preceded only by Swift’s own “Love Story.” And after her sophomore album, Fearless, was re-released in its platinum edition earlier this month, Swift found herself with nine singles on the Billboard Hot 100 (their main song chart) in a single week, more than any female artist ever.

Given these tremendous accomplishments, it’s especially disappointing that the VMA incident is at this point far better known than the video that won the award in the first place. So it seems worth our time to take a second (or in many cases, a first) look at this year’s Best Female Video.

Clearly, this is a fun, catchy song to which a lot of us can relate. “You Belong with Me” is also not very “country” for a country song, and so its appeal to pop listeners is unsurprising. (Of course, as with most country crossover hits, there’s also a pop remix that gets plenty of radio play, but it honestly isn’t that different.) “Me” is certainly far less country than the songs of country’s most recent pre-Taylor crossover star, American Idol winner Carrie Underwood. This is hardly surprising, given that Swift hails not from the South but rather from the small but decidedly northern town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. (Underwood, meanwhile, grew up in Checotah, Oklahoma, which just sounds country.)

Indeed, if not for the occasional twang of the steel guitar and the way Swift enunciates a few words here and there (“ea-ee-sayyy”), this song might just as well have been recorded by, say, Michelle Branch circa 2001. What “You Belong with Me” takes most from its country roots is its structure; like any good country song, it tells a story, and a good one at that. It’s the kind of story that leaves you feeling unquestionably better at the end than you did at the beginning.

In all honesty, though, what I noticed when I first heard this song was this:

She wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts
She’s cheer captain, and I’m on the bleachers

Having practically been born and raised on the proverbial bleachers, I don’t mind saying that Swift’s lyrical characterization of herself as the Invisible Woman is at best clueless and at worst downright disingenuous. She is just too pretty. The video’s costume director tries to bring some context to these lines, but a pair of big glasses and a baggy t-shirt can’t hide Swift’s beauty. I’m really not sure whether I am supposed to believe that she underwent some kind of magical ugly-duckling transformation in her adolescence, but it is a testament to Swift’s earnestness that “You Belong to Me” doesn’t suffer from a complete lack of credibility.

It turns out that I am not the only one with this opinion. In case you missed it, take a closer look at these shots from the video:

As you can see, the video’s titular “me” is played by Swift, while “she” is played by — you guessed it — none other than Swift again, this time sporting a brunette wig and a less frumpy wardrobe.

The favorable interpretation of this casting decision is that Swift and her director wanted to send a message that the same girl can be both a lovable “me” and a loathsome “she,” but what matters is how you act rather than how you look. The appeal of this sentiment might even be why VMA voters decided to grant the moonman to this video over Kanye’s clearly expressed preference (which, by the way, did win Video of the Year). But for all we know, the truth is that someone realized it would be very hard to find a girl who was dramatically prettier than Swift — prettier enough to make her seem like she belonged on the bleachers — and so they blurted out in yet another frustrated casting meeting, “screw it, let’s just have her do both parts.”

As she ages and is forced to develop a more mature appeal, Swift will face an interesting challenge. It seems that her most forthright songwriting (yes, she writes or co-writes all her work) comes from her Plain-Jane, girl-next-door persona, but it’s far from clear that adult audiences, generally more aware than than their teen and tween counterparts, will continue to go along with this little lie. Thus, unless she experiences a radical change in sensibility, Swift may find herself clinging to her traditional younger base longer than it is able to sustain her. (This, by the way, is the opposite of the problem Miley Cyrus needs to solve: she seems eager to build a more grownup image but isn’t really pretty enough to make the transition to fans who will evaluate her appearance along a grownup yardstick.)

So, do I think “You Belong with Me” is good enough to be named the Best Female Video of the Year? Well, I’m a sap, so I like it a hell of a lot better than “Single Ladies” (to be honest, I hate that song), and I find the other nominees forgettable. As a short film, “Me” is engaging and well-produced. It’s missing one element that many of the best pop videos showcase — choreography — but I’m happy to give that up for a cute story. So I guess you could say that Taylor gets my vote, if that counts for anything.

I just have one question: how does a girl who wears nothing but t-shirts and sneakers make a last-minute decision to go to prom and then manage to show up with the prettiest dress?