
Authors and illustrators include components in their work to support an overlaying motif. These components include: Color scheme, background, shot type, etc. The motif captures the, or one of the, main ideas of the artistic or literary piece. Often times this is found in music videos, for the purpose of making a statement. Taylor Swift’s music video for her song “Bad Blood”, does just that. It was directed by the successful Joseph Kahn, and produced by Taylor Swift herself. The music video uses specific and strategic shots of women in positons that portray them as dangerous and strong to support the motif of powerful women.

In the first scene of the video, Swift and Selena Gomez are seen in a tall office building. They’re wearing mostly black, and fighting a handful of grown men. The black symbolizes power, death, and elegance. All the men are wearing identical grey suits, and getting beat by two women in high heels. The grey suits are dull and represent how their run of the mill business men, nothing special. The men are also wear black eye masks, like superheroes wear. But hear it puts the men in bad light, like they’re trying to deceive, and have something to hide. Placing the men on this low level of character, makes the women look even more powerful in comparison. The women also have short haircuts. The hair of a woman has often symbolized their beauty, long hair being more beautiful, but their short hair shows less emphasize on beauty and more on power. All the desks in the office are identical, an express no individuality. But the women are wearing unique outfits, expressing themselves.

In the final scene of the music video, Swift and her army faces off against Gomez and her army. When they are walking, they are in a v-formation, like jets are on military flight missions. All the girls, on both sides are wearing almost entirely all black clothing. Even though they are not wearing a lot of clothing, it can be empowering for women to dress how they want. There is a fairly dramatic explosion in the background, which is powerful in itself, and only exemplifies the strength of the women in front of it. They walk on a barren, rough, landscape that helps to symbolize the roughness of the situation and of them. Most of the girls are carrying weapons, rocket launchers, knives, machine guns, and they have spikes and ammo belts on their outfits. This is entirely self-explanatory; it represents their strength. Taylor Swift now has deep red hair, which symbolizes her violence and danger, and her sharp triangle ear rings also supports her intentions of looking fierce (I know it’s hard to take this seriously after I just genuinely used the word “fierce”). The camera angles close up on the girls faces and boots, not the most objectifying parts of a woman, because, though they are dressed arguably provocatively, it is not about that, it is about them being powerful. 

Through intentional placement of objects, specific wardrobe design, and overall color scheme manipulation, the creator of this music video was able to portray all the women in it as powerful. All the woman in the video are doing something strong or brave, and the men are either sitting around, or getting embarrassed in a fight. By placing symbolism like this in a piece, whether it is subtle or as obvious as massive explosions, an author can convey an important aspect of their work, an aspect that is significant to their vision.

