Taylor Swift is showing off a new side of her in the brand new video for her latest single, “Blank Space,” which debuted exclusively on Yahoo! some hours ago. You can catch it in full embedded below as well.
If in “Shake It Off” Taylor poked fun at all her haters by doing unexpected dance routines she wasn’t even remotely qualified for, in “Blank Space,” she’s taking a massive dig at the tabloid media and this image of her they have created in the past couple of years, starting from her well-publicized relationships with men like John Meyer, Harry Styles, or Jake Gyllenhaal.
So, the video introduces her to Sean, her new man, the one she’s willing to fill the blank space in her life with.
Sean is her perfect man (and he’s absolutely gorgeous too, it must be said!), and for a while, they live a perfect romance, the kind you only see in the movies. Except, you know, more outrageous, because they don’t ride bicycles indoors in the movies, or picnic on nothing but champagne and sweets.
But when things go bad, they go disastrously so. As the romance nears its end, poor Sean sees all his clothes cut with a scissors, his photos and portraits defaced, and even his prized car ruined with a golf club.
It’s important to stress that this is exactly the way the tabloids portray Taylor’s love life, there is no exaggeration about the video. The next guy that comes after Sean is also part of the tabloid narrative.
Otherwise, this video might play out just like an instance of domestic abuse, with the roles reversed. And that would be very uncool.
[Update, November 10, 2014, later]: according to the director of the video, Yahoo! messed up and released it earlier than planned. The video is no longer available online, but you still have the screencaps to give you an idea of how amazing it looks.
Yup. Yahoo effed up. Wait to see the Blank Space video. Let Taylor introduce it herself. It'll be worth it :)
— Joseph Kahn (@JosephKahn) November 10, 2014
I'll link video later when I think it's clear. I think it may be a mistake on yahoo's part - they may have released it early by accident.
— Joseph Kahn (@JosephKahn) November 10, 2014
[Update, Novemver 10, 2014, later]: Yahoo! has released the video again, this time for good. Here it is in all its beauty.