Taylor Swift and the Teenage Fantasy of The Summer I Turned Pretty

In the second episode of The Summer I Turned Pretty the opening chords of “Teenage Dirtbag” by Wheatus sound off as two teens make out without tongue in a blue Volkswagen. Cut to her brother and his sort-of girlfriend hooking up on the beach, and their mother sitting up in bed, quietly reading. The entire sequence is so earnest, so relatively chaste, that to choose a rock song, especially “Teenage Dirtbag,” made me laugh out loud....