Why Taylor Swift Can’t Fix Him

by Lauren Boyer

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Superman catching a falling Lois Lane — “how romantic,” the theater oohs and aws. Prince Charming saving all of his princesses lying unconscious in coffins and castles. The image is not a new one: the savior complex pervades American culture, telling little girls to wait for a knight on a white horse, telling them to do nothing.

Yet, as girls get older, they so often find themselves disappointed. They grow weary of their own towers and get blisters from the glass slippers they’ve long outgrown. They desire to be women of action!

But the script remains in their head. The lie that it is possible and good to fix a person, and a romantic, heroic thing to do, lives on in their heads, un-rebuffed. 

In fact, popular culture continues to encourage the romanticization of the savior trope. On the television screen, young girls cheer on Jess and Rory’s romance in Gilmore Girls, despite the obvious toxicity of the good-girl-bad-boy romance. From Taylor Swift singing to millions of teenage girls, “I can fix him — no, really I can!” to Lana Del Ray romanticizing dangerous men in Ultraviolence (“he hit me and it felt like a kiss”), American girls, especially white ones, are taught that having a savior complex makes them as cool as the icons they look up to. 

The problem comes along when you remember that a savior complex is a “complex” for a reason, and glamorizing mental issues does more harm than it does good. Instead of bringing community to those facing the way their minds have twisted the world into Alice in Wonderland-sized proportions, the public treatment of savior complexes instead puts its perpetrators on a pedestal, calling them “romantic” and feeding their self-denial.

From the outside, the savior complex seems easy to fix. It seems simple to change or end a relationship that does more harm than good to both parties involved. But the issue isn’t the situation where it manifests, it’s the dangerous outlook itself. 

So what is a savior complex really? Often it sprouts from the premature responsibility given to a child at home, or it develops as encouraged by religious and societal norms, which many times play on gender stereotypes. The “savior” identity manifests itself in a lack of boundaries regarding others and an abundance of boundaries regarding the self. Self-sacrifice appears as the highest virtue, accompanied by a fear of letting others down. The result: a compulsion to help everyone around the “savior,” whether they need it or not. The “savior” is blind to their complex as they are blind to their own need for help. They are simply too busy saving everyone to save themselves. They are too blind to realize everyone (including themself) would be better off without their exhausted attempts to be the hero. As for the effects of their impaired assistance? The “savior” is left depleted as their actions result in burnout and the neglect of their own needs — sometimes so intensely it leads to depression and anxiety. As for the “saved,” they are to be pitied for the dependency, lowered self-esteem, and hindered growth their “savior” has caused them. Meanwhile, the relationship between the “savior” and the “saved” is marked by imbalance, resentment, and conflict. However, there is hope at the end of the tunnel. The “savior” can be saved from themself. They must become aware of the problems of their complex, instead of romanticising it as American culture does. Then they can begin to explore where it came from and, through therapy and setting boundaries, learn to support instead of save.

But there is a racial level to this chaos which it would be wrong to neglect. If it hasn’t become clear to the reader already, let it be so now that the savior complex is drenched in white culture. What started with the “white man’s burden” has wandered its way through colonialism and culture to where it sits today, amidst movies and white feminism. 

From Lana Del Ray’s questionable statements on feminism and race (which tie her dangerous idealizations to a racist mindset), to an entire movie genre of white woman saviors (you may recall Dangerous Minds (1995) or The Blind Side (2009)), the connection between white women, savior complexes, and oppression is evident. 

White feminism distinguishes itself from regular, inclusive feminism by its absorption with itself. Instead of respecting the culture, religion, and values of many women worldwide, white feminism imposes its western values. It leaves no room between “trad-wives” and “career women” and rips the hijab off its Islamic sisters (literally). White feminism is the female equivalent to "not all men." It minimizes the perspective of a minority group by emphasizing its own attempted heroism. 

In contrast to the romanticization of modern western media, Anne Brontë (known as the forgotten sister of Charlotte and Emily) spun a tale of woe. Her novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, appears to be based on experiences with her alcoholic brother Branwell. It tells its readers the story of a woman whose savior complex leads her into a marriage of terror and substance abuse. Her disillusion, combined with her stubborn reliance on Christian principles, leads her to save her son from her husband while also trying to save him from himself. Brontë’s warning against the dangers of alcohol also serves as a warning against savior complexes. As the protagonist pulls herself and her husband into the roles of “savior” and “saved,” it grows clear that there are disastrous effects to minimizing human worth and agency. 

As prone as we are to enjoy the savior trope, whether in the news or cinema, it is important that we refuse to cast ourselves and others in the roles of “savior” and “saved.” Instead of singing along to Taylor Swift’s “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can),” young girls in particular would be better served by the lyrics of Rise Against: “She said, ‘I don’t hate you boy / I just want to save you / While there's still something left to save / That's when I told her, ‘I love you girl / But I'm not the answer / For the questions that you still have.’”  Not one of us is fit to be a savior. We are no deity, try as we might. Declaring and attempting to be a god cannot stall human frailty. But we can seek to love and support those around us, and that’s something we best do when we take care of ourselves.