Taylor swift
The visuals for Look What You Made Me Do offer a manic phối of self-referential images that find the pop star commenting on the fall of her reputation
Celebrities are often accused of lacking self-awareness. And no one’s been on the receiving kết thúc of that criticism more than Taylor Swift. Despite a lengthy catalogue of hits in which she plays scorned exes and lovelorn balladeers, the country singer turned pop superstar has been seen less as a victyên than as a purveyor of victimhood, using her prodigious songwriting talents and natural affability to become a megaphone for perceived injustice.
So what does Taylor Swift vì chưng to lớn prove sầu khổng lồ us she’s aware of this narrative (the one, of course, from which she’d like to lớn be excluded)?
Release a music đoạn Clip – for her new single, Look What You Made Me Do – that’s practically boiling over with meta-commentary & self-referential detail, from an ongoing visual snake motif to a tombstone that literally reads “Taylor Swift’s reputation”. Yes, it’s painfully on-the-nose, but Swift’s brvà hasn’t exactly been built on subtlety.
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Look What You Made Me Do – or LWYMMD, as its Twitter hashtag dictates – is well on its way to lớn smashing streaming records, but the tuy nhiên hasn’t been as well received by critics. Continuing in the tradition of her last album, 1989, which marked Swift’s official evolution inlớn pop music behemoth, it largely abandons that which made her a household name – singable melodies; sharp, specific lyricism; gr& tales of lãng mạn enchantment – in favor of radio-engineered pop and glib proclamations of vengeance. Near the kết thúc of the tuy nhiên, she answers a phone call; someone’s asking to speak with Taylor Swift. “She can’t come to lớn the phone right now,” Swift 2.0 says. Why? “Because she’s dead.”
In the battle between Swifts, my allegiance is with the deceased version, a shrewd chronicler of young-adult courtship and seasoned, starry-eyed songwriter. So much so that hearing her new single made me nostalgic for the days of Fearless & Red. But the Old Swift be damned; this new one is all about retribution and, as the title of her forthcoming album suggests, reputation.
The music video for LWYMMD, which premiered during Sunday night’s VMAs, sees Swift double down on her vengeful streak, making theatre of her scandal-laden career in an attempt to communicate a self-awareness that’s mostly eluded her. The đoạn phim is good fun, if a little bit mad; it’s certainly the most brazen & ambitious pop music video since Beyoncé dropped Lemonade in the spring of last year, replete with pyrotechnics và dozens of costume changes. But it doesn’t amount lớn much more than a succession of disconnected images. And if the images could talk, they might say, “I know what you think of me”, or, perhaps, in the words of Joanne the Scammer: “I’m a messy bitch who lives for drama.”
But still, in all those images, Swift left a lot to be decoded. A connoisseur of the tongue-in-cheek (remember the capitalized letters in her lyric booklets that spelled out clues about a song’s subject?), it begins with a zombified T-Swift digging her own grave.
Photograph: YoutubeGet it? The Old Swift is dead, dunzo, kaput, resigned to lớn the graveyard of pop culture history. First, we see the aforementioned tombstone, where Swift’s reputation lies, but also a second one, reading “Nils Sjoberg”, the pseudonym Swift used as a co-writer on her ex-boyfriend Calvin Harris’s tuy vậy, This Is What You Came For, a collaboration widely assumed to lớn have contributed lớn their breakup. Swift’s writing credit was supposed to lớn be kept secret, but when her team revealed that she had, in fact, written the Harris-Rihanna hit, her ex went on a tweetstorm about how Swift was looking for “someone new khổng lồ try and bury”. So she buried the fictitious Mr Sjoberg.
Photograph: YoutubeIn the next shot, Swift luxuriates in a tub of diamonds, where there sits a single dollar bill, a possible reference lớn the symbolic dollar she earned in last month’s sexual assault case against the radio DJ who groped her in 2013. Internet conspiracists, too, ran with this as a visual reference khổng lồ Melania Trump, who could be seen forking diamond necklaces lượt thích spaghetti in a Vanity Fair spread last year. But those were the same people insistent that Swift, who kept mum during last year’s presidential campaigns, is a closeted Trump supporter. That the election coincided with Swift’s period of self-imposed exile did little lớn get her baông chồng in the public’s good graces; but diamonds, unlike gilded nhà wc seats, bởi vì not a Trump reference make.
Photograph: YoutubeThis next one is a dead giveaway: Swift sits atop a throne as dozens of snakes slither at her feet. One even serves her what we can only assume is piping hot tea, the kind Kyên ổn Kardashian dished out when she released audio of Swift, who publicly disputed Kanye West’s lyric about her in Famous, appearing lớn sign off on those same lyrics in a phone conversation with West. Afterwards, Swift’s reputation as a snake in sheep’s clothing took off; Kardashian helped further that image by tweeting a bunch of snake emojis on international snake day. More than a year later, it seems Swift’s ready khổng lồ embrace the title: ahead of the single’s release, she dropped cryptic reptilian teaser videos. And now, the snake has shed her skin.
There’s also an inscription on Swift’s gold throne that reads “Et Tu Brute”, the Latin phrase used in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar when Caesar is being assassinated by his frikết thúc Brutus. It’s a far cry from the Swift of yesteryear, whose Shakespeare references were more Romeo & Juliet than Julius Caesar. But she’s dead, remember?
Photograph: YoutubeIt was at the năm 2016 Grammys, when 1989 beat Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly for album of the year, that Swift first began khổng lồ truly thử nghiệm the public’s patience. That was also where she publicly rebuked West’s lyric about her in her acceptance speech.
So in the next shot, as the chorus begins, Swift rams a shiny gold car inkhổng lồ a storefront where paparazzo are lurking. She opens the door, a cheetah in tow, lớn show off none other than her Grammy award. She proceeds to lớn display và caress it in one of the video’s most bewildering moments.
Photograph: YoutubeSwift’s love sầu of cats is well documented. Here, she’s surrounded by stacks of cash và a Girl Squad of masked felines, wielding a baseball bat and a sweater that says “Blind for Love”. In the next scene, the masked marauders can be seen robbing a music streaming company. Swift, if you remember, boycotted Spotify for years due to its dismal compensation of artists. She also wrote an open letter to lớn Apple Music in 2014 arguing on behalf of increased artists compensation and then took lớn Tumblr, in June năm ngoái, blasting Apple’s decision lớn give sầu users three-month không tính tiền trials. And now she’s baông chồng khổng lồ rob them, cát imagery khổng lồ boot.
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Photograph: YoutubeSwift first assembled her Girl Squad in the music video for Bad Blood, supposedly a shot at rival Katy Perry. She then spent her 1989 world tour parading her besties around in different cities, throwing parties for her superMã Sản Phẩm coterie và bringing them lớn red carpets. This didn’t work out great for Swift, adding to lớn the perception that she surrounds herself only with similarly alpine, Aryan beauties such as Karlie Kloss, Martha Hunt and Gigi Hadid.
But she knows you think that, alright? So here’s a factory of fembots united lượt thích the sentient hosts of Westworld. Swift stands before them in leather & latex, the ringleader of scorned Girl Squads the world over.
Photograph: YoutubeThis next still made waves for its apparent resemblance khổng lồ a shot from Beyoncé’s Formation đoạn Clip. But the real hidden gem is the backup dancers’ belly shirts, which read “I Heart TS”. Tom Hiddleston, one of Swift’s ex-boyfriends, was caught in a similar shirt when splashing around the beaches of Rhode Isl& with Swift. All of which seems lớn suggest that Swift surrounds herself only with those who emblazon their love for her on T-shirts. Or, she’s commenting on the fact that you think she does that.
Photograph: YoutubeAs we get closer to the finale, we see Swift standing before a bunch of former Swifts: the lovesiông chồng high-schooler from the You Belong With Me music video, the one in a silver flapper dress who was interrupted on the VMA stage by Kanye West, the innocent, bespectacled one wearing pajamas, the one dressed as a White swan from the Shake It Off music đoạn Clip. They claw at her feet, aching khổng lồ be resurrected. But Swift 2.0, wearing a blaông xã shirt that says “Rep”, banishes them all and declares the “old Taylor” dead.
This segues into the video’s utterly cringeworthy dance break which, for all I know, is more Swift meta-commentary on how bad of a dancer everyone thinks she is (an, ahem, reputation corroborated by all the times awards show cameras have panned awkwardly to Swift in the audience during a performance, writhing around lượt thích the inflatable tube men at gas stations).
Photograph: YoutubeFinally, the Swifts both old và new assemble before an airplane, where the word “reputation” appears again. Here, Swift on Swift reaches its thematic apex: Zombie Swift tells You Belong With Me Swift lớn “stop making that surprised face, it’s so annoying”. White Swan Swift adds: “You can’t possible be that surprised all the time”. Top-hat Swift tells Cowboy Boots Swift that she’s “so fake”. Cowboy Boots Swift bursts inlớn tears. “There she goes, playing the victim again,” responds another Swift, wearing spiked leather. Leopard-clad Swift holds up her phone và announces she’s “getting receipts” – and that she’ll “edit them” too, a reference lớn Swift’s belief that Kardashian artfully edited that incriminating audio of her. And finally, 2009 VMAs Swift, holding her Moonman, announces she would “very much like khổng lồ be excluded from this narrative”.
And with that – as old Swifts expire & a new one is born – the narrative sầu lives khổng lồ see another day.
