Swiftly Dispatched

In the glittery video for her new single Taylor Swift throws shade at her critics – and makes fun of her reputation

- Kirstin Buick

SO AFTER nearly a year of radio silence the cutie who made country cool is back – but this is Taylor Swift as you’ve never seen her before. Gone is the squeaky-clean starlet who burst onto the scene when she was still a teenager and in her place is a take-no-prisoners pop princess who’s clearly not above holding grudges.

It seems the 27-year-old has used her time off to take note of every bit of shade ever thrown her way. The feud with Katy Perry? Check. The Kanye West debacle? You betcha. The beef with ex Calvin Harris? Yup. The much-mocked fake relationship with Tom Hiddleston? That too.

It’s all neatly packaged in a music video for her new song, Look What You Made Me Do, which was unveiled at the recent MTV Video Music Awards. TayTay didn’t attend the ceremony but she was still the talk of the town afterwards. Perhaps it was all part of the surprise song reveal: make all the impact you can and don’t hang around for any post-mortem chats.

In the video Taylor transforms herself into a host of characters, starting as a zombie clawing her way out of a grave marked with a tombstone that reads “Here lies Taylor Swift’s reputation”. Then she’s the leader of a squad of female cyborgs, followed by a bank robber and even a star involved in a car crash caused by relentless paparazzi.

The most telling moment is where she skewers various iterations of herself: the sweet country music sensation, Red Tour Taylor Swift of 2013 and the 2009 VMA Taylor on the night Kanye West upstaged her award speech. That version of herself stops the others’ bickering with her infamous line: “I’d very much like to be excluded from this narrative.” To which they scream in unison: “SHUT UP!”

But she doesn’t only poke fun at herself – she also has a go at her critics.

THE SSSNAKE