A still from Taylor’s new music video Shake It Off
Highlights
- Shake It Off is not really a dance video. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it is a dance video in the current pop sense - a video that treats dance less as an art in itself than as a cultural signifier. The concept of the video is to put Swift in the position of a pop star or R&B diva or rapper, fronting backup dancers. The scenarios cycle through genres: ballerinas in Swan Lake costumes, a crew of b-boys, emotive contemporary dancers in spandex, a cheerleading squad, Lady Gaga futurists in shiny tracksuits, and yes, a line of ladies jiggling the contents of their cutoff denim shorts.
- The joke in each case is that Swift doesn’t fit in. Only in the final section does she belong: a zone where “normal people” (including fans of Swift chosen over social media) just do their own thing and shake off outside expectations. The dancing by the professionals around her is extremely fragmentary and unremarkable. The snatches of movement, none longer than 2 seconds, are there as eye candy, to establish each genre and to set up the visual punch lines.
- The punch lines, as this dance critic was happy to see, are mostly dance jokes. The way that Swift trips over the crossed legs of the ballerinas and topples while trying to bow deeply in toe shoes is not highly clever or knowing, but it’s funny. And the frightened and confused look that she gives the overwrought contemporary dancers is a moment that earns a dance critic’s immediate empathy.
- Swift in Shake It Off is like Lucille Ball or Carol Burnett, a heroine triumphing through klutziness. It is probably too generous to interpret the video as a satire of how dance gets used in pop videos, but it certainly is a satire of pop video conventions.
- Which brings us to the twerking. The moment when Swift crawls between the lined-up legs of the twerking ladies, advancing through the colonnade of jiggling flesh as if she were the camera of Busby Berkeley, is very silly. A second later, when Swift breaks out in giggles, she is laughing at the absurdity of herself in that video genre, but also, I think, at the absurdity of the genre, too.
- With respect to racial politics, it would have been better if the shots of ballerinas had included some darker complexions. But if Sweatshirt had bothered to watch the video before commenting, he might have noticed the carefully placed black faces among the cheerleaders, the contemporary dancers and the regular people, and also the trashy white women among the twerkers. For him to have accused Swift of racism without watching the video is as unjust as if she had accused him of misogyny without first listening to his tracks.
- Yes, everyone knows that there is racism and misogyny in pop music. Fortunately, there’s also humor.
is not really a dance video. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it is a dance video in the current pop sense - a video that treats dance less as an art in itself than as a cultural signifier. The concept of the video is to put Swift in the position of a pop star or R&B diva or rapper, fronting backup dancers. The scenarios cycle through genres: ballerinas in
Swan Lake costumes, a crew of b-boys, emotive contemporary dancers in spandex, a cheerleading squad, Lady Gaga futurists in shiny tracksuits, and yes, a line of ladies jiggling the contents of their cutoff denim shorts.
The joke in each case is that Swift doesn't fit in. Only in the final section does she belong: a zone where "normal people" (including fans of Swift chosen over social media) just do their own thing and shake off outside expectations. The dancing by the professionals around her is extremely fragmentary and unremarkable. The snatches of movement, none longer than 2 seconds, are there as eye candy, to establish each genre and to set up the visual punch lines.
The punch lines, as this dance critic was happy to see, are mostly dance jokes. The way that Swift trips over the crossed legs of the ballerinas and topples while trying to bow deeply in toe shoes is not highly clever or knowing, but it's funny. And the frightened and confused look that she gives the overwrought contemporary dancers is a moment that earns a dance critic's immediate empathy.
Swift in
Shake It Off is like Lucille Ball or Carol Burnett, a heroine triumphing through klutziness. It is probably too generous to interpret the video as a satire of how dance gets used in pop videos, but it certainly is a satire of pop video conventions.
Which brings us to the twerking. The moment when Swift crawls between the lined-up legs of the twerking ladies, advancing through the colonnade of jiggling flesh as if she were the camera of Busby Berkeley, is very silly. A second later, when Swift breaks out in giggles, she is laughing at the absurdity of herself in that video genre, but also, I think, at the absurdity of the genre, too.
With respect to racial politics, it would have been better if the shots of ballerinas had included some darker complexions. But if Sweatshirt had bothered to watch the video before commenting, he might have noticed the carefully placed black faces among the cheerleaders, the contemporary dancers and the regular people, and also the trashy white women among the twerkers. For him to have accused Swift of racism without watching the video is as unjust as if she had accused him of misogyny without first listening to his tracks.
Yes, everyone knows that there is racism and misogyny in pop music. Fortunately, there's also humor.