[MUSIC] Taylor Swift, "Bad Blood"
May. 22nd, 2015 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldI would have blogged last night about Taylor Swift's song "Bad Blood", but sleep interfered with my blogging schedule. No matter: It's still a pop-cultural event, breaking a Vevo record to accumulate 20.1 million views in just 24 hours, and featuring dozens of female stars starring as superhuman crime-fighters, only starting with Selena Gomez as Swift's enemy agent Arsyn. (Facebook's Andrew was quite fond of Lena Dunham as a cigar-chomping agent, while Tumblr has noted that Swift plays with so many images that she appeared both as Jean Grey and as Emma Frost.)
Musically, the song is catchy. Lyrically, it is to the point, if perhaps too much so. Betrayal has occurred, and it's irrevocable.
Still, it's a fun song and a compelling video. Writing at The Atlantic, Spencer Kornhuber argued in favour of its subtly feminist imagery.
+1
Musically, the song is catchy. Lyrically, it is to the point, if perhaps too much so. Betrayal has occurred, and it's irrevocable.
'Cause, baby, now we got bad blood
You know it used to be mad love
So take a look what you've done
'Cause, baby, now we got bad blood
Hey
Now we got problems
And I don't think we can solve them
You made a really deep cut
And, baby, now we got bad blood
Hey
Still, it's a fun song and a compelling video. Writing at The Atlantic, Spencer Kornhuber argued in favour of its subtly feminist imagery.
As a work of audiovisual filmmaking, it’s kind of a flop. With so many co-stars, the editing becomes so hectic that even the barest bones story here is indiscernible and you’re never quite sure who’s doing what. But the point of the video was already made with those posters. This is a fun imagining of an action-movie universe where women rule, a corrective to the Smurfette syndrome that, for example, forces Black Widow into being defined almost entirely by her entire gender while the men of The Avengers enjoy a diverse set of storylines. All the “Bad Blood” women have their own signature powers, gear, and personas—imagine that!
The song “Bad Blood” has widely been interpreted as a middle finger to Katy Perry, the pop singer who Swift often seems to clash with in the press. This interpretation may or may not be true, but in either case it feeds into old stereotypes about women as inherently catty, and into the limiting idea that females must necessarily compete for the top spot in arenas from music to dating. Swift’s been countering that narrative lately by playing up her same-sex friendships in social media, making her Instagram feed into a real-life demonstration of what the point of the Bechdel test is. The video extends that mission to epic levels. But it also features women betraying each other and facing off, as if to say, “We’re humans. Some of us are going to get along, some of us aren’t.” Again, that shouldn’t be a point that needs to be made—except for the fact that society keeps showing that is is.
+1
