Taylor Swift What You Made Me Do Review
Less than two weeks into her Reputation era, Taylor Swift has never been more exhausting.
After a week-long buildup, Swift's Look What You Made Me Do video premiered at the VMAs Sun night — stealing the spotlight from host Katy Perry, whose history with Swift continues to be exhausting. Directed by her favorite visual collaborator, Joseph Kahn — whose previous videos for the star haven't always nailed the right tone — the macabre clip plays out a meta revenge fantasy that casts Swift as an evil overlord, gazing downward every bit a writhing mass of her erstwhile personas claw to her pedestal.
The video is total of Easter eggs and subconscious messages that critics have feverishly unpacked in the hours since its release. Near notably, it ends with a line of quondam Taylors, wearing hyper-specific outfits from her past performances and music videos, lobbing increasingly on-the-nose insults at one some other, as ane Taylor sneers, "At that place she goes, playing the victim again."
Trouble is, while those past Taylor Swifts that she symbolically kills off in the video weren't perfect, at to the lowest degree they were centered effectually more than just a lust for revenge, which seems to be the just defining characteristic about Swift'southwardReputation phase thus far. They played the guitar. They wore costumes in silly music videos. They danced with Tom Hiddleston at the Met Gala.
Not seen in the video was a representation of the Taylor Swift that advocated for sexual assault victims in court last month, which many fans hoped would indicate a new management for the star. Information technology'south hard not to wonder whether that version was also purged to brand way for this new Taylor Swift, whose just discernible qualities are a drawer full of receipts and a penchant for Blackout-era Britney Spears. As Swift declares in the video, she'south always had a reputation for playing the victim. Simply now, that pettiness, that used to exist equally part of a multifaceted creative person, is all she has.
The Wait What You lot Made Me Do video is Swift's attempt at self-awareness, full of Easter eggs intended to prove to the viewer that Swift hasn't forgotten all the nasty things people have said almost her over the years. Unfortunately for Swift, but commenting on her soured reputation does not a cultural critique make.
Yes, at that place'southward some enjoyment for Swift fans in watching the singer skewer the many media narratives that dominated her past few years. But, watching Swift equate her "squad" of friends to plastic mannequins and spoof poor Tom Hiddleston with a line of dancers wearing a play on his infamous "I center T-Swift" shirt, viewers have to wonder whether these figures would've preferred to be excluded from the video's narrative.
While Swift may change her adversarial tone in her forthcoming singles prior to Reputation's release on Nov. x, she'southward certainly signaling with the Await video that she's non quite finished lashing out at her enemies. That's a shame, considering that prior to Look'due south release, in that location was promise that Swift's forthcoming era would strike a different tone.
Swift took a much-needed year away from the spotlight last yr after a series of wildly dumb tabloid dramas, including lashing out against Perry with her Bad Blood single and video, tussling with Kanye W and Kim Kardashian over Famous, and the humiliating saga that was Hiddleswift. Looking back, these headlines will all-just-overshadow her actual 1989 album in the Swiftian history books. Likewise bad that1989 is an infinitely better piece of work of popular music than Look, a dull new unmarried that cheapens the piece of work of an artist who was once amid her generation's all-time songwriters.
Subsequently disappearing for much of 2016 and 2017, Swift returned for her successful trial against radio DJ David Mueller, where a jury ended that he groped the singer during a meet-and-greet. Swift thanked her fans and recognized her privilege in a statement afterwards the trial, before pledging to donate to organizations supporting sexual attack victims, signaling that a more than mature and meaningful era for the singer may be on the horizon.
Fast forward to this week, when Swift is being accused of mocking Kim Kardashian's Paris robbery with a scene in the Look video where she pantomimes shooting a gun while cached in jewels in a bathtub. Considering Kardashian was bound at gunpoint in a bathtub while existence robbed of her diamonds, the video's allusion is clueless at best, and merciless at worst, a microcosm of Swift's Reputation era thus far.
While Swift may direct Look What You Made Me Do at an intentionally-vague "you," blaming her villainous transformation on an unidentified target, the only person responsible for her regrettable new persona is herself.
Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2017/08/28/taylor-swifts-look-what-you-made-me-do-video-isnt-smart-its-just-petty/607805001/
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