reaction to look what you made me do
C elebrities are often accused of lacking self-sensation. And no one's been on the receiving end of that criticism more Taylor Swift. Despite a lengthy catalogue of hits in which she plays scorned exes and lovelorn balladeers, the country vocalist turned popular superstar has been seen less as a victim than as a purveyor of victimhood, using her biggy songwriting talents and natural affability to become a megaphone for perceived injustice.
And so what does Taylor Swift do to bear witness to united states of america she's aware of this narrative (the one, of course, from which she'd similar to be excluded)?
Release a music video – for her new single, Look What You Made Me Exercise – that's practically humid over with meta-commentary and self-referential detail, from an ongoing visual snake motif to a tombstone that literally reads "Taylor Swift'southward reputation". Yes, information technology's painfully on-the-nose, but Swift'due south brand hasn't exactly been congenital on subtlety.
Look What Yous Made Me Do – or LWYMMD, as its Twitter hashtag dictates – is well on its mode to slap-up streaming records, only the vocal hasn't been besides received past critics. Standing in the tradition of her final album, 1989, which marked Swift'due south official development into pop music behemoth, it largely abandons that which fabricated her a household name – singable melodies; sharp, specific lyricism; one thousand tales of romantic enchantment – in favor of radio-engineered pop and glib proclamations of vengeance. Near the end of the song, she answers a phone telephone call; someone's asking to speak with Taylor Swift. "She can't come to the telephone right at present," Swift 2.0 says. Why? "Because she'south dead."
In the battle between Swifts, my allegiance is with the deceased version, a shrewd chronicler of young-adult courting and seasoned, starry-eyed songwriter. And so much and so that hearing her new single made me nostalgic for the days of Fearless and Red. Merely the Quondam Swift exist damned; this new one is all almost retribution and, as the championship of her forthcoming album suggests, reputation.
The music video for LWYMMD, which premiered during Lord's day night'south VMAs, sees Swift double down on her vengeful streak, making theatre of her scandal-laden career in an attempt to communicate a self-sensation that'southward mostly eluded her. The video is proficient fun, if a little chip mad; it's certainly the most brazen and aggressive popular music video since Beyoncé dropped Lemonade in the spring of terminal twelvemonth, replete with pyrotechnics and dozens of costume changes. But it doesn't amount to much more than a succession of disconnected images. And if the images could talk, they might say, "I know what yous recall of me", or, perhaps, in the words of Joanne the Scammer: "I'one thousand 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 well-nigh a song'southward subject?), it begins with a zombified T-Swift earthworks her own grave.
Get information technology? The Quondam Swift is dead, dunzo, kaput, resigned to the graveyard of pop civilization history. First, we see the aforementioned tombstone, where Swift'south reputation lies, just besides a second one, reading "Nils Sjoberg", the pseudonym Swift used every bit a co-writer on her ex-beau Calvin Harris's song, This Is What You Came For, a collaboration widely assumed to accept contributed to their breakup. Swift's writing credit was supposed to be kept hugger-mugger, simply when her team revealed that she had, in fact, written the Harris-Rihanna hit, her ex went on a tweetstorm nearly how Swift was looking for "someone new to endeavour and bury". And so she buried the fictitious Mr Sjoberg.
In the next shot, Swift luxuriates in a tub of diamonds, where there sits a single dollar bill, a possible reference to the symbolic dollar she earned in last month's sexual assault instance against the radio DJ who groped her in 2013. Cyberspace conspiracists, as well, ran with this every bit a visual reference to Melania Trump, who could be seen forking diamond necklaces like spaghetti in a Vanity Fair spread concluding year. Merely 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 cocky-imposed exile did little to get her dorsum in the public's skillful graces; just diamonds, dissimilar gold toilet seats, do not a Trump reference make.
This next 1 is a expressionless giveaway: Swift sits atop a throne as dozens of snakes slither at her feet. 1 even serves her what we can but assume is piping hot tea, the kind Kim Kardashian dished out when she released audio of Swift, who publicly disputed Kanye West's lyric about her in Famous, appearing to sign off on those same lyrics in a telephone chat with West. Afterwards, Swift's reputation as a snake in sheep's clothing took off; Kardashian helped further that epitome by tweeting a agglomeration of snake emojis on international snake solar day. More than a year later, it seems Swift's ready to encompass the title: ahead of the single's release, she dropped cryptic reptilian teaser videos. And at present, the snake has shed her skin.
In that location's also an inscription on Swift's gold throne that reads "Et Tu Creature", the Latin phrase used in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar when Caesar is existence assassinated by his friend Brutus. Information technology's a far cry from the Swift of yesteryear, whose Shakespeare references were more than Romeo and Juliet than Julius Caesar. Merely she's expressionless, retrieve?
It was at the 2016 Grammys, when 1989 vanquish Kendrick Lamar'southward To Pimp a Butterfly for anthology of the year, that Swift first began to truly test the public'due south patience. That was also where she publicly rebuked W's lyric nearly her in her acceptance speech.
So in the next shot, equally the chorus begins, Swift rams a shiny gilded car into a storefront where paparazzo are lurking. She opens the door, a cheetah in tow, to show off none other than her Grammy award. She gain to display and caress it in one of the video's well-nigh bewildering moments.
Swift's love of cats is well documented. Here, she's surrounded by stacks of cash and 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 yous call back, boycotted Spotify for years due to its dismal compensation of artists. She also wrote an open letter to Apple tree Music in 2014 arguing on behalf of increased artists compensation so took to Tumblr, in June 2015, diggings Apple's conclusion to give users three-month costless trials. And now she'south back to rob them, cat imagery to boot.
Swift first assembled her Girl Team in the music video for Bad Blood, supposedly a shot at rival Katy Perry. She then spent her 1989 earth tour parading her besties around in unlike cities, throwing parties for her supermodel coterie and bringing them to carmine carpets. This didn't work out great for Swift, adding to the perception that she surrounds herself only with similarly tall, Aryan beauties such every bit Karlie Kloss, Martha Chase and Gigi Hadid.
Simply she knows you recall that, alright? And so hither's a factory of fembots united like the sentient hosts of Westworld. Swift stands earlier them in leather and latex, the ringleader of scorned Girl Squads the world over.
This next still fabricated waves for its apparent resemblance to a shot from Beyoncé's Formation video. But the real hidden jewel is the backup dancers' abdomen shirts, which read "I Middle TS". Tom Hiddleston, ane of Swift's ex-boyfriends, was defenseless in a similar shirt when splashing around the beaches of Rhode Island with Swift. All of which seems to 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.
As we get closer to the finale, nosotros see Swift continuing before a bunch of former Swifts: the lovesick high-schooler from the Y'all Vest With Me music video, the one in a silver flapper dress who was interrupted on the VMA stage past Kanye West, the innocent, bespectacled i wearing pajamas, the one dressed as a white swan from the Shake It Off music video. They hook at her anxiety, aching to be resurrected. But Swift 2.0, wearing a black shirt that says "Rep", banishes them all and declares the "old Taylor" dead.
This segues into the video's utterly cringeworthy trip the light fantastic intermission 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 like the inflatable tube men at gas stations).
Finally, the Swifts both quondam and new assemble before an aeroplane, where the word "reputation" appears again. Here, Swift on Swift reaches its thematic apex: Zombie Swift tells You lot Belong With Me Swift to "stop making that surprised face, it'south so annoying". White Swan Swift adds: "Y'all tin't possible be that surprised all the time". Top-chapeau Swift tells Cowboy Boots Swift that she'south "so simulated". Cowboy Boots Swift bursts into tears. "In that location she goes, playing the victim once again," responds another Swift, wearing spiked leather. Leopard-clad Swift holds up her phone and announces she's "getting receipts" – and that she'll "edit them" too, a reference to Swift's belief that Kardashian artfully edited that incriminating audio of her. And finally, 2009 VMAs Swift, belongings her Moonman, announces she would "very much like to exist excluded from this narrative".
And with that – as one-time Swifts expire and a new one is built-in – the narrative lives to see another day.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/aug/28/taylor-swift-look-what-you-made-me-do-music-video
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