Taylor Swift came out with the the "...Ready For It?" video on October 26, 2017. Let me just say this video was very deep. It really had nothing to do with the lyrics to the song. The lyrics had to do meeting someone and starting to date them, taking it slow.
The music video was a sci-fi thriller music video filled with parallels with what has been going on in Taylor's life the past couple years.
The video features two Taylor's, let us call them straight hair/black clothed Taylor and curly hair/Naked Body Suit Taylor. It is interesting that Taylor is showing us various "Taylors" in both videos for the Reputation album. She started doing this with her last video for 1989's "Out of the Woods" where different Taylors in that music video embodied different struggles she had gone through in her life. The message of that video is the same as this video, finding ones self, but in the "...Ready For It?" video Taylor adds all the struggles she has gone through since then and how she has found herself again.
The Body Suit Taylor is Taylor's inner self. The self she has hidden from the world. The self is timid at first, but then is empowered and set free at the end of the video. When entering the entertainment industry there is so much pressure to present one's self in a certain way. Women are pressured to look a certain way, act a certain way, date certain people, do media interviews, weigh a certain weight, do certain things, and accept certain behaviors. Up until this year of her life Taylor had been listening to all those voices. It was not until she released 1989 that she finally started standing up to those voices. She told Scott Borchetta and the team at Big Machine Label Group she was going full on Pop even though they wanted a few country songs like they had for her Red album. Her gamble paid off and she won the Album of the Year. This was the real start to Taylor's independence. But even then Taylor has always presented a certain persona, for example not wanting to leave the gym looking like she had worked out. She shows pictures of her famous friends on Instagram. She dates men and is "seen" with them in public. She had done all these things because she thought it was expected of her.
The black clothed Taylor ends up getting destroyed in this music video. A lot of people think the black clothed destruction is caused by the media. That they were out to get her. I would argue that it is not at least not the root cause. They may exaggerate the witch hunts, but they are not the cause. The destruction of the black clothed Taylor is Taylor releasing herself from these expectations. She is done trying to present her life in a certain manner pleasing to everyone else. She is hiding her relationships, not doing media interviews, gaining a healthy weight, wearing her hair the way she wants, and so many more things.
The witch hunt is other people trying to gain fame from her mistakes or miscalculations. Maybe she did make a few mistakes, but trust me the only mistake she made with Kanye West was agreeing to the line in the first place. But as I have said before she was put on the spot and it was "expected" she be okay with Kanye saying he owed her sexual favors. She did not in any way, and I am so glad women are coming forward with the #metoo campaign and standing up to that behavior.
Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Katy Perry have all added to the witch hunt of trying to tarnish her reputation. It is not the medias fault, it is their fault for trying to capitalize on Taylor's fame. They are trying to twist the situations to make them look like Taylor's victims when in fact she is not hurting any of them. They know if they mention Taylor they will show up in more media outlets, show up in google search results, and get more followers on Snapchat. Namedropping a famous persons name in an article is a sure way to do these things. They do not care if they are name dropping and talking bad about the person. What they do not realize when they are doing this is they are bullying Taylor.
Taylor releases herself of these expectations and rises above it, become her own hero leaving in a white horse. This is a node to her "White Horse" song. At the end of the video we see a close up of her face, she is smiling, her hair is curly and she does not have a care in the world.
I think this is EXTREMELY important for women in the entertainment industry. In light of the Taylor's sexual assault trial and the Harvey Weinstein scandal that has rocked Hollywood and is only probably the tip of the iceberg for what happens in Hollywood, the music industry, everywhere, this video is very significant. Sexual assault and bullying are closely related. I would argue that Kanye's comments were sexual assault even if it was on the phone. If women can be allowed to be them self and not feel pressured to look a certain way, ie drop weight, get implants, plastic surgery, accept men treating them like crap, it will help everyone. It will especially help those little girls that look up to those women. It will help release woman of the power that men have over these industries and let them finally be themselves. And it will hopefully help them stand up to assault and bullying from others within the industry. I am so glad Taylor has found herself in the past year. I am so glad she is throwing the stupid expectations out the window. Hopefully it will help empower all women. I am so excited for the Reputation Album.
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