#delicate mv

[lovesickallovermybed]

FOOLISH ONE - (taylor's version) (from the vault)

[swiftiesbuddie]

this community note is killing me😆😆

[frrosty]

[ m a r o o n ]

[chloe-or-sam-or-sophia-or-marcus]

You can mark my words, I said it first, in a mourning warning no one h e a r d . . . 🏰🦇🕸 my edit: @chloe-or-sam-or-sophia-or-marcus

[daisyswift3]

[lossisyours]

high infidelity (midnights, 2022) / delicate mv still / so long london (the tortured poets department, 2024) / the black dog (ttpd: the anthology)

[shortsweetespresso]

Taylor Swift Icons : Delicate MV

please like/reblog if using

[that-was-a-bit-stupid-of-you]

in case no one read the thing above, I MEAN MUSIC VIDEOS NOT THE SONGS

[daisyswift3]

This is a fantastic analysis! She’s been telling this story since the beginning—the tale of 2 Taylors. The midnights prologue indicates that “midnight” is when these 2 version of herself will finally unite. She and “the man” become one and step into the daylight together. It’s the grand finale

Submission: I wanna talk a bit about Taylor representing herself as two girls over the years. How she represented her ‘duality’.

One to entertain the crowd while the other hides away. One is also shiny and bold while the other is shy and shaken.

The first time was in the You Belong With Me music video. The popular, bold girl that is chasing the boy, while the other shy, shaken girl is hovering behind. Not fully hidden and not fully seen.

In the YBWM MV the two girls were against each other, but after more time, they became a team. The shiny version is protecting the fragile one.

In 1989, we see it again in the OOTW MV. Taylor meets another version of herself after facing, storms, wolves, forests, snow and falling off a cliff and almost drowning. The beauty of the representation is that it collides with the pain of being in a bad relationship. It’s like she blends the pain of having to be two people in front of the public while almost losing your authentic hidden self in the process, with the feeling of losing yourself in a bad relationship, not knowing who you are anymore.

She faces the impossible to hang on to her true self, to not lose the girl she hides from everyone. The girl whom she can’t be. Playing a role could overcome your life to the point of being that fake version of yourself even when you’re alone, almost believing you could be this girl when doors are closed. But she doesn’t want to.

Then in Ready For It, we meet her again. The glass-box girl. The naked girl. The fragile yet authentic one.

The Taylor in the cloak is vicious and bold. She is brave and dark. She is what people see Taylor after 2016. Even Taylor’s “other shiny version” before Reputation kept her softness to a degree, but after 2016 she became a bit more tough. But also this is how Taylor thought she should be in her darkest moments. She should stop being soft.

The one in the glass-box is naked. She is exposed even though she is in the box, the box is transparent. She is visible, yet she isn’t. Being naked equals being vulnerable and this is how she sees herself, her true self. At the end she chooses to beat her “public” self. Which gives me hope that her plan isn’t to hide forever. Also the fact that the cloak Taylor turns out to be a robot when she gets destroyed.

Another two Taylors are present in Delicate. Yet here, Taylor reminds people that she is still the soft, sensitive girl she’s always been. She can’t be the dark, thick-skinned girl she thought she should be in her darkest moments. Which makes me feel like she is more able to embrace the two versions of herself to some extent.

The Delicate MV might be the most important want because the moment Taylor touches the mystical, magical note, she disappears. Which has the same golden halo present in Willow MV and the invisible golden string.

The moment Taylor touches the paper which equals, in my opinion, love, she has to disappear. She can’t be visible cause when she loves she has to hide herself. She has to hide that version of herself.

And while the magic of love and being loved makes her dance her heart out, she ends up being devastated and sad cause at some point, she wants to be seen. She desires living like everybody else. When the sudden rush of love fades, she laments being invisible and alone with her feelings.

When the women in the elevator looks in the mirror, for a second she is so happy that finally someone saw her. But she didn’t. And then she gets sad again.

Also like OOTW, she goes through so many places and stages but THIS TIME to find her love not herself. Which is almost hopeful, that she is already at peace with herself to some extent, she found who she is and is more content with that fact, that at this point, finding her lover is what makes life complete and full.

We see in The Man how Taylor is present in the end of the MV as the director. Directing herself playing a “man”. Which just represents for me Taylor is the mastermind behind her life while she does everything from a “male perspective”. It also is the same thing, two versions of herself.

What also goes with that, is in the Lover MV, there is 7 versions of Taylor, the story of a lifetime, despite being Taylor Swift, the only place she can show her true self is at her house. The 7 versions are the true authentic Taylor. The shiny Taylor isn’t present, simply cause she is home.

In Willow, it isn’t as obvious, it’s in fact a bit different cause when Taylor is locked in the glass-box, it isn’t the shiny Taylor, it is the authentic Taylor that’s why she panics. Which also makes me believe she is blurring the line between both, trying to make them both collide.

And now we come to the the Midnights duality. The Anti-Hero MV.

It’s the first time Taylor patently admits that there is two versions of her. She shows it to the entire world that she is two people. One is her public self and the other is her true self.

But this time the authentic true Taylor is feeling haunted and lonely even in her own house. Which fits the theme of Dear Reader “if you knew where I was walking, to a house not a home, all alone, cause nobody is there”. I believe that this is the time where she locked herself away and decided to hide from everyone around 2016, OR The Great War time.

But also the house could be representative of Taylor’s head and how her brain works. And how this who scene could only be her having a war in her mind, fighting voices from the past and the voice of her own self (shiny Taylor).

In Anti-Hero Taylor isn’t happy either way. Not being her shiny self or her true self. And this is might be a relapse, the darkest moment of her life when her career and success isn’t making up for her hiding. Hiding isn’t being tolerated even when success happens and her career thrives.

Which reminds me of the moment in MA when she says she was at the top of the mountain and said “now what”. Was it all worth it?

The in Bejeweled she does the same thing. She is two versions of herself. The first Taylor cleaning Scott’s shit all those years, locking herself in a cabin, serving others and not herself. Then the shiny Taylor.

This version of the shiny Taylor isn’t as toxic as the one in Anti-Hero which in my opinion means that Taylor in a constant fight with those two versions of herself. In the talent show, she wins through her talent, she gets the castle, but also she swings between the idea that her art is her way of confessing her truth but also it’s a curse cause it’s the reason why she is hiding in the first place.

[putonyourrecords]

delicate music video choreography segue to meeting ur lover when.

[hyunpic]

👋 @chancheols

[tolerateit]

Every Taylor Swift Music Video -> delicate

[starshapedoasis]

~Songbird

[badnewswhatsleft]

11 beat it mv - commentary (full band)

[theysaidspeaknoww]

My reputation's never been worse, so you must like me for me...

[ohgaylor]

IT MUST BE EXHAUSTING (AN ANALYSIS)

Hi. Taylor’s the problem. And she knows it. (affectionate)

All right friends. It’s time to dive into an analysis again. I’ve been reflecting on a lot of Midnights and Taylor’s ever-present self-deprecation this era and in my regular fashion, I had to make an extremely long-winded analysis post about a certain motif of hers that I’ve noticed has only grown more apparent this time around. and essentially that is her self-awareness toward her ever-ambiguous signaling in regard to her identity, and where she is positioned in the complicated and delicate journey of coming out, as well as the plethora of emotions that surround that for both herself and her fans and those of us who pick up on the queer coded subtext of her music and art.

to kick off this analysis, may I remind you of this beauty of a quote from Taylor’s 2018 reputation tour pride speech that prefaced Delicate?

I want to send my love and respect to everybody who in their journey and in their life hasn't yet felt comfortable enough to come out ... and may you do that on your own time and may we end up with a world where everyone can live and love equally and no one has to be afraid to say how they feel. When it comes to feelings and when it comes to love and searching for someone to spend your whole life with, it’s all just really really delicate.

That is quite possibly my favorite thing she’s ever said. and what inspired this tag.

Now I need to clarify up front — I am never insinuating a need or even desire for Taylor to come out. Because that’s not our place to say. If you’ve been around my blog long enough, I would hope that nuance would be apparent. I simply point out regular motifs and patterns within her art and how it correlates with queer-coded themes of closets, of almost coming out, of outright queer coding, of rainbows, of keeping a love secret and safe, and on and on and on. The signs are there if you know what to look for (re: “I gave so many signs”) and that’s what I explore on my blog. The point is, I will never demand she come out. But I will stand with her in this complex journey she appears to be on. It’s entirely her journey and however she wishes to navigate that is hers to decide.

but that doesn’t detract from the reality that for those of us who see this beautiful queer subtext of her art and music and visuals and work and self, the ambiguity and constant back-and-forth when it comes to her identity (and the idea of coming out) can in fact be a lot to try and process and understand and ultimately to reconcile as we root for her. Trying to understand where she stands is much like chasing a moving target. (not that she owes any explanation to us, because again, she doesn’t.) her art and creativity are her place of expression and catharsis. however, watching her navigate these complexities and trying to root for her in this sometimes messy space is also, dare I say, exhausting.

hence, the title and general theme of this analysis.

so let’s begin.

First, we have this verse in Anti-Hero which is the perfect setup to illustrate this specific motif,

I should not be left to my own devices They come with prices and vices I end up in crises Tale as old as time

This is essentially the thesis of Taylor’s message, the feeling that her own judgement and actions might be the very cause for certain crises she finds herself in, however enticing those vices and choices may be. In choosing to straddle a glass-closeted lifestyle as an artist at her status and level of fame, all the while heavily queer-coding to her (receptive) audiences, only to be seen by most others as the hallmark of straight women as per her highly publicized bearding, juggling this all can be overwhelming. But it’s also a space that she has essentially curated and perpetuated herself.

An anti-hero is a central character in a narrative who conspicuously lacks heroic, moral qualities:

Although antiheroes may sometimes perform actions that are morally correct, it is not always for the right reasons, often acting primarily out of self-interest or in ways that defy conventional ethical codes.

Identifying herself as the anti-hero in this sense comes as a candid confession, as though she is admitting that maybe she is driven by self-interest. (which again, she is entitled to as we all are in our own lives.) (re: the jokes weren’t funny, I took the money, my friends at home don’t know what to say) Alternatively, and perhaps additionally, acting out of self-interest in this context may mean concealment of parts of her identity for the sake of self-preservation. The nuances behind why she hasn’t chosen to come out are at play here and I doubt any of us can fully comprehend what that is exactly.

I never had the courage of my convictions, as long as danger is near

Pouring out my heart to a stranger but I didn’t pour the whiskey

Combat, I'm ready for combat. I say I don't want that, but what if I do? 'Cause cruelty wins in the movies. I've got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you … Dark side, I search for your dark side. But what if I'm alright, right, right, right here?

You can easily grasp the intense oscillation as she goes back and forth between these decisions while juggling a myriad of reasons and factors, all of which are incredibly weighted. She knows it’s exhausting for us because it’s that much more exhausting for herself.

So, she elects to pursue a route all too familiar to closeted individuals in the public eye, one of bearding and concealing their identity.

I had some tricks up my sleeve … Perched in the dark, telling all the rich folks anything they wanna hear, like it could be love, I could be the way forward, only if they pay for it … the skeletons in both our closets plotted hard to fuck this up

I took the money. My friends from home don't know what to say.

The cost at which this lifestyle comes is worthy of an analysis all on its own. But Taylor seems to be indicating that she has found safety and security in her self-made cages and closets of sorts.

I prefer hiding in plain sight

‘Cause shade never made anybody less gay

If the shoe fits, walk in it 'til your high heels break

My town was a wasteland, full of cages, full of fences*, pageant queens and big pretenders. But for some, it was paradise.

In the darkest little paradise

(also, note the *fences. I’ll come back to that later.)

She brings focus to the fact that her town was full of cages and fences, which initially may carry a negative connotation. But here’s where she turns it around and says that for some, it was place of paradise, that the self-made cages brought security and freedom. That the idea of “forever” is in fact the sweetest con. That the good life she was hustling for through the tricks she had up her sleeve is within grasp. That this could be the way forward. Tell me that doesn’t scream a queer-coded experience?

But knowing Taylor and the complicated nature of this deeply personal topic, there is also a level of remorse regarding the said-cages and choices that had put her in crisis.

I cut off my nose just to spite my face, then hate my reflection for years and years

I’ve got a hundred thrown out speeches I almost said to you

I’d pay if you’d just know me

Now, despite the way she has managed to remain glass-closeted, a large subset of her fans and the general public completely miss what she is signaling in regard to her queerness. (re: “I gave so many signs / you didn’t even see the signs”) but it appears she is feeling some remorse for the devices she’s used and the way she’s navigated things because she knows that she’ll be the one paying for it.

So again, Taylor fully acknowledges she’s the problem. She endlessly dances around the topic, sometimes to an extreme (re: “bent the truth too far tonight,” Bettygate and specifying a male perspective despite widespread interpretation of the alternative; similar thing with Lavendergate, etc etc) She writes from “male perspectives” so as to have a way to write female pronouns. She uses pseudonyms for similar motives. She equates herself with gay pride and places herself adjacent to the community repeatedly, and dances in Gaylor Park and rainbow kaleidoscopes. She dresses in rainbow attire and gives speeches emphasizing the delicacy of coming out and on and on, all while also remaining straight-passing. It’s complicated and messy and indeed exhausting.

sending signals to be double-crossed

I’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror. It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero

no doubt these devices and choices have come at a cost. first, the personal cost of remaining closeted (or in the very least, glass closeted) by her own making. The nature by which she has driven her career, of “taking the money” and pursuing a career (and by extension, following heteronormative cultural standards of remaining closeted), all point to the self-made cages she twists in.

recall the Delicate pride speech…

I want to send my love and respect to everybody who in their journey and in their life hasn't yet felt comfortable enough to come out ... and may you do that on your own time

That is a major theme for her. The idea that through a closeted state, certain freedoms can coexist.

We know Taylor has made a point to emphasize the comfort she has found in keeping elements of her life to herself post her apocalyptic summer. And the way she has largely receded her personal life from the public eye is telling. In an effort to protect the “real stuff”, she is withholding from others and has found safety in that.

Privacy sign on the door and on my page and on the whole world, romance is not dead if you keep it just yours.

She knows it’s not always a world that some would choose to be a part of. She describes it as a wasteland, likely desolate, harkening back to cowboy like me. A place where hustling for the good life, perching in the dark as con artists (or pageant queens and big pretenders) and telling all the rich folks anything they want to hear like “it could be love” is all too familiar.

It’s a painful dichotomy she fully explores in The Archer, recognizing that maybe it’s her lot in life to straddle these lines of staying where she is, perched in the dark, while wanting to step into the daylight and let it go.

and that’s where the second cost comes in — in how those of us who see her for what she is signaling herself to be, are ultimately left to ourselves to make sense of it.

It’s the same kind of essence of this fantastic analysis regarding coney island and her apology of not making us certain subsets of her fans and communities her centerfold.

Being left to her own devices, she has ultimately crafted a duplicitous persona, of which she has spoken about specifically when discussing mirrorball…

Everybody else feels like they have to be on for certain people. You have to be different versions of yourself for different people. Different versions at work, different versions around friends, different versions of yourself around different friends. Different version of yourself around family. Everybody has to be duplicitous, or feels that they have to in some ways, be duplicitous. And that’s part of the human experience, but it’s also exhausting. You kind of learn that every one of us has the ability to become a shape-shifter. But what does that do to us?

Is it self-preservation? Or self-made self-destruction? (re: “they told me all of my cages were mental” “what a shame she’s fucked in the head” “lost in the labyrinth of my mind”)

Among the various anxieties that plague her in regard to this subject, Taylor makes one fear very clear. And that is for some inevitable day where we will leave her after we’ve had enough of “her scheming”.

'Cause they see right through me, they see right through me, they see right through. Can you see right through me?

I wake up screaming from dreaming One day I'll watch as you're leaving 'Cause you got tired of my scheming For the last time

These desperate prayers of a cursed man spilling out to you for free, but darling, darling, please, you wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking if you knew where I was walking

Will you forgive my soul when you're too wise to trust me and too old to care?

She will get as close as she can to the topic, (“Gay pride… everything that makes me me!” to name just one) only to pull back or leave it ambiguous and devoid of clarity…

I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror

And I cut off my nose just to spite my face Then I hate my reflection for years and years

…only to feel guilt for skirting around the topic…

You said I was freeloading … I bent the truth too far tonight, I was dancing around, dancing around it … Your picket fence is sharp as knives, I was dancing around, dancing around it

This to me is the a significant price that comes from her being left to her own devices. Yes, there is freedom that comes from closeting/bearding. But glass closeting brings a more painful mess of emotions for both the closet-er and those seeing it for what it is. This is what she addresses in Anti-Hero with painful clarity.

And sometimes this can come at a painful cost. Take YNTCD for example. In this video, she positions herself within the queer community, dancing in Gaylor Park, and boldly declares herself an advocate for LGBTQIA rights.

But as we know, the video was met by many as out-of-touch (re: “freeloading”), performative and whatever else critics were spewing.

motion capture put me in a bad light. I replay my footsteps on each stepping stone, trying to find the one where I went wrong. writing letters addressed to the fire

Now for a detour.

I want to talk about the purple / blue / lavender glitter for a minute. Here, in the Directors on Directors interview, Taylor describes the glitter as being a metaphor for herself...

It’s supposed to be a metaphor for like, I bleed glitter, I’m not normal, there’s something wrong with me, I’m not a person, I don’t belong, I don’t fit in anywhere.

Recall how I said chasing a moving target?

Let’s talk about the significance of this scene and a handful of others in terms of the lavender glitter.

[For some queer context regarding glitter]

I’d first like to point out Hayley Kiyoko’s purple glitter jacket above, from the YNTCD video. This is Hayley Kiyoko we’re talking about. The proclaimed Lesbian Jesus. And in this moment, while she is wearing the purple glitter jacket, she is aiming an arrow at a target, signifying The Archer. This moment is key.

And then you have the Miss Americana documentary, wherein Taylor explicitly equates herself with gay pride, while talking about the Me! music video.

It’s a line of dialogue that screams at me with such intensity. Irrefutable. As a film editor, I know that every line in a film is deliberately placed and thought out and meticulously addressed. And therefore we can trust that Taylor intended for this line to make it into the film. I can tell that surrounding dialogue is seemingly trimmed and crafted in a delicate way. And part of that is the very direct statement that “Gay pride…everything that makes me, me!”

And it’s within this music video that we again witness a massive “ME!” literally jumping out at us on screen, in none other than purple glitter.

A handful of others could sense that the conclusion of Miss Americana felt as thought it was headed in a different direction than the one it ultimately took. And that for whatever reason, Taylor’s political advocacy took center stage while a deeper analysis regarding her LGBTQIA advocacy did not.

Cut back to the Anti-Hero music video where we get The Archer aiming right for Taylor, and striking her, causing her to bleed, yet again, purple glitter.

Pierced through the heart but never killed… did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism, like some kind of congressman

My covert (secret) narcissism (ME!) I disguise as altruism like some kind of congressman (the political turn and advocacy present in Miss Americana)

In other words, covering up who she is (“gay pride… everything that makes me me!”) under the guise of a film almost exclusively focused on her journey of discovering her political (“Vote for me for everything” pin) activist voice. And what scene depicts this with near precision???

this one.

motion capture put me in a bad light. I replay my footsteps on each stepping stone, trying to find the one where I went wrong. writing letters addressed to the fire

'cause cruelty wins in the movies, I've got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you

The subsequent look on her face of absentminded agony says it all. She knows the confusion that comes from rooting for her as (especially if she is seen as an ally who maybe crosses one too many lines if presumably as straight.)

The inner-turmoil on display for us in The Archer has transformed into a tone all too exhausted in its own right within Anti-Hero. She knows we’re tired. She’s tired too. In a self-deprecating jab, she admits that she is the problem and she knows that everybody ultimately agrees with her on this. Shielded within a pop anthem, her vulnerability is on display. And so, in Dear Reader, with equal parts desperation as well as wit, she concludes…

You should find another guiding light, guiding light. But I shine so bright.

And so it is ultimately within this utterly messy, exhausting, complicated, ever-changing and nuanced journey that Taylor reaches out to those of us who do in fact see through her and who ultimately simply see her, that she asks us in all sincerity…

Who could stay? Who could stay? Who could stay? You could stay.

And I, for one, will stay.

[enjoy my other analyses here]