The music video being analyzed is Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” 2017 video from her album ‘Reputation’. This incredibly symbolic video directed by Joseph Kahn is a hybrid between a hybrid and performance video.
The video contains a myriad of intertextual references relating to Swift’s career, the first being her usage of costume. The first shot shows Taylor emerging from a gravestone in her iconic dress from her “Out of the Woods” music video, this is the first of many reappearing costumes from all of Swift’s previous ‘Eras’. Another being her infamous opening costume from her “You Belong With Me” video making a reference to her early albums and career. Towards the end of the video, we then see a mountain of Taylor’s all appearing in different costumes from different eras.
The most important yet most discreate intertextual reference used throughout the video is the reoccurring usage of snakes, this calls attention to the false controversy surrounding Taylor Swift and the many events where mounds of celebrities and fans flooded her social media comments with snake emojis due to an edited phone call between Taylor and artist Kanye West. There is also a secondary reference made to this incident at the very end of the video when the music has finished one of the versions of Taylor begins to record and when asked what she is doing she stated- “getting receipts, going to edit them later” as she is stood next to another version of Taylor dressed as her 19 year-old self at the VMA’s where Kanye West interrupted her speech on stage.
The video certainly contains conventions of a narrative music video as it is set to portray the storyline of the artists 'character development' and shows the downfall of her previous selves young and naive personality. We see this in the shots of her in costumes from her older music videos all falling down.
Many believe that this shot of Taylor holds a deeper significance that most don’t realise. This could be a reference to Taylor Swift’s sexual assault case against David Muller where he was fined $1. In her tub full of jewels and valuables, there is seen to be $1. The jury awarded is beside her—perhaps a symbol of just how much the victory meant to her. As Swift's lawyer said during his opening statement during the trial, the dollar is meant to help people understand that "you can say no when someone puts their hand on you. Grabbing a woman's rear end is an assault, and it's always wrong. Any woman—rich, poor, famous, or not—is entitled to have that not happen." On the tub itself: While some believe it's a reference to Kim Kardashian, fans note that Swift actually talked about the "Blank Space" character she created—off of the media's serial dater portrayal of her, of course—literally being in a tub like this. "She traps them (the men she's seeing) and locks them in her mansion and then she's crying in her marble bathtub surrounded by pearls," she said of the persona during an acoustic performance of "Blank Space" in the Grammy museum in January 2016.
The video cuts to a scene with the paparazzi which represents the intense media scrutiny and invasion of privacy that Taylor Swift has endured throughout her career. It highlights the constant presence of paparazzi and how they can distort and manipulate narratives about celebrities. The scene serves as a commentary on the pressure and scrutiny that artists face in the public eye. It’s a powerful visual representation of Taylor’s personal experiences with the media and the way she addresses those experiences in her music .