VIDEO: Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar’s “Bad Blood” Music Video Is Fucking Awesome

Okay at some point I’ll have to get into more detail about how I’m super into Taylor Swift now, but in the meantime, look what the goddesses gave us today!

BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Share your theories in the comments.

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Riese

Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3238 articles for us.

80 Comments

  5. a) You might want to change the video you’ve embedded, because it’s playing a different song and directing people to the actual link.

    b) For me it was kind of underwhelming. A lot of random character stuff (just barely), but no plot. I didn’t even know they were supposed to be supervillians until I read articles about the video – it just seemed like Hunger Games with code names.

    Garbage’s The World is Not Enough did this so much better.

  7. I’m still in awe of this. All these ladies having fun in a video and looking badass and just???? wow.

    (trying not to think about Lena Dunham, sigh)

  8. To be perfectly honest, I was rather “meh”. Theres too many cameos and detracts from it all. I love that Mariska Hargitay, Hayley Williams, Jessica Alba and Cindy Crawford as they are all personal favs, but its waaaayyyy too short for all the names in there. The only way I can see this to work from now is if they extent this concept into a couple more video clips, otherwise I remain “meh”

    • I feel like she will probably release 12-15 clips / outtakes videos to get all the cameos more screen-time. personally i’d like a 15 minute version sort of like lady gaga did that one time (i think? was that lady gaga)

  10. Maybe in the extended version there will be more Ellen Page and Samira Wiley

    (this is why I can’t have nice things)

  13. – I was expecting something like “Thriller”. A 15 minute short.
    – I want so much more of Hayley Williams/The Crimson Curse.
    – Please, Taylor, build on this story with more videos. Sort of like the series of music videos from Daft Punk, “Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem”.

    • yes! it was too short/confusing. half the people you mentioned i didn’t even recognize, just my #1 love Mariska.

    • I agree it should have been longer. If this were Kanye it would have like 20 minutes at least. I’m still not over Hayley Williams tho. She looked so fucking good.

  14. I find the video a bit distressing at first but then there’s so much female beauty in it that it kind of soothes me.

    • you did you did!! It’s bc TaySway’s cats are named Olivia Benson and Meredith Grey! I know a lot about this…..

  16. Can we talk about how she had Mariska Hargitay and Ellen Pompeo walking down the hall together. IT IS OLIVIA BENSON AND MEREDITH GREY AKA HER CATS?!?! What a human

  18. watching this was the queerest thing I’ve done all weekend and I just stenciled a cat’s face onto a t-shirt

    • this made me laugh and also thank you for helping me realize that all i’ve ever wanted in life is for everyone to wear their scissoring shirts in their userpics

    • I bothered to sign in just to up vote your very funny comment. Thanks for the laughs.

  19. I really liked it so many ladies now if only it was longer it would be much better
    also if T Swift made a movie with all these ladies I would so watch it

  20. Underwhelming for sure. Sort of looks like a hyped underwear runway show. Victoria’s Secret does 50 Shades of Grey, that level of depth. So if that’s badass for you… They’re all so skinny and femme, with one or two notable exceptions like Lena and Mariska. And Cindy looks like she was made out of plastic. Which – kind of cool, maybe? One cyborg to rule them all.
    What does it mean? Let’s not overthink this; it’s all about the look.

  21. Hayley Fucking Williams though. I have been so hype for her since Taylor released her promo pic for the character and she did not disappoint. I don’t even care that much about Swift or the long but I was promised Hayley Williams and Ellen Pompeo so here I am fangirling. Damn you, Taylor. You got me again.

  22. I really appreciate the Fifth Element allusion with the white tape outfit and weird glass tube thingy! Growing up I could never understand why seeing Milla Jovovich in that part always made me so happy. Now everything makes A LOT more sense.

    Thank you TaySway for adding a new dimension to my enjoyment of that part!

    • YES OMG I’M GLAD I WASN’T THE ONLY ONE THAT CAUGHT THAT. I LOVE the Fifth Element and wasn’t sure if I was just imagining that connection…

  23. You know how everyone has that one celebrity they are convinced isn’t straight? For me, I would like to present evidence #569 that TSwift is the most bisexual person I’ve never met.

  24. i feel like i’m watching a hot femme version of cats the musical? idk all i’m seeing are introduction clips this is bizarre and i love it???????????

  25. I too was underwhelmed. I was SO EXCITED seeing all the promo photos and wondering how in the hell all these people were going to be important parts of a music video. It just seemed to be awkward fighting and slomo blink and you miss it acknowledgement of notable people while their names flashed on the screen.

    Hopefully this does end up being a long series of videos to flesh out all the stuff that’s going on because it felt like a million ideas all just kind of put together without any solid plot line to follow and there’s SO MUCH TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF.

  27. The song is underwhelming, but want to see this film.

    This was interesting in light of Anne Helen Petersen’s take on T Swift’s female friend collecting (http://www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen/kaylor-forever). You could see this as a video version of her rotating Instagram BFFs.

    This is an interesting new direction for her – remember Love Story era Taylor? Now she has a cool-girl posse instead of a mysterious dream-boy. Female solidarity forever!

    • Thanks for posting this article, I’ve been thinking about Taylor Swift a lot lately too (instead of, you know, working…) and this article kind of answered what I’ve been turning around in my head. She’s someone who’s always been incredibly savvy and very good at controlling her image and I don’t think we can really know what’s actually going on in her personal life. Which seems appropriate, if also a little disappointing (by which I 100% only mean, how fun would it be if she were gay). And I’m not going to get too carried away thinking she’s a radical feminist just because she has a lot of scantily clad skinny women in her music video, either. Although I love that it wasn’t all about a guy (def passes the Bechdel test), and I also love that she’s still friends with Lena Dunham (seriously, why all the hate?)

      All that said, I am very happy this video is in my life. But I don’t think it’s anything grander than a lot of fun.

      Eta: my wife read this and thinks I’m just responding to myself, and no one is actually taking this video that seriously, but I’m posting anyway in case anyone’s in the same mental place as me…

  28. Wait, so this was confirmation of the old rumor I used to see that T-Swift and Selena Gomez used to be secret girlfriends and then had a bad breakup, right?

    • I think it’s just them poking fun at the rumor that they aren’t friends anymore because of Selena’s constant back and with Justin(whom Taylor doesn’t like) when in actuality they are still really close. Her relationship with Selena Gomez is one of the longest friendship’s Taylor has had with anyone else in showbiz.

  30. I too found this pretty underwhelming… i’m really getting tired of transhuman apocalypse aesthetics and, though Leeloo was a nice reference, why not try to have Mila Jovovich in it? Now, that would have been badass! I don’t like Lena Duhnam but her parts are the only ones that I actually enjoyed! All very subtle, no explosions or overt demonstration, just chillin’, smoking on some Cuban cigar… she was the classiest.
    But the rest of the video is good only for cameos, really…

  31. I’m here for Kendrick and Cara. And perhaps a few outfits… The song is better than the video for me, too much Micheal Bay-esque distractors instead of plot… I’m with Riese, an extended version would probably flesh it out a bit.

  32. So she basically got all of her friends to starr in a mini action movie and got the record company to pay for it all with the excuse that it’s “good promotion”? Good use of being a popstar tbh!

  34. Holy crap that was awesome! Super love the scifi vibe of everything. I want a female action hero / anti-hero movie STAT!

  35. Oversexualizing/supporting the impossible societal standards for women, but disguising it as strong and empowered… I don’t buy it.

  38. I hope in the extended cut both groups of womens who were marching at each other in the explosions at the end join forces to destroy men.

  39. i just feel like there was a lot of sexual tension between taylor and karlie in the boxing ring and i’m here for everything else in this video too

    • There’s definitely a moment in the middle of their boxing match where I was like “and this is where they make out, right??”

    • Also, did anyone else notice how queer that boxing setup was? The audience was literally 100 screaming soft butch women in wifepleasers.

  41. I’ve never really been a Taylor Swift fan…but this is AWESOME. Also, Cara is a goddess.

  42. This is the weirdest thing to watch if you don’t know too many celebrities. I got so confused, like I had to know every person who was in frame for 1 second. Less is more, maybe.

  43. I love that people want more content from a music video? The girls look good and it seems she got her company to pay to hire all her friends to have fun making a music video. BOSS STATUS.

  44. I was also thinking on the way home last night when my best friend saw it for the first, but if TSwift did let them chose their names, then Jessica Alba’s was no coincedence *drools*. She was paying homage to the role that started her career, Domino in Dark Angel….whom also always rode a motorbike to get around. *continues to drool*

  45. OK, so I absolutely loved this because IT WAS ALL WOMEN WORKING TOGETHER.The first scene where Taylor and SElena absolutely kick a million dudesin the ass was pure genius. How often do you get to watch two beauty queens kick ass like that? And then, that Selena (Arsyn) back stabbed her, kind of upset me because women are too good at throwing each other under the bus… But in the end it was ALL WOMEN fighting. Both teams, were all women. In fact I saw a youtube video aftewards that listed the 7 best parts of the video.
    I mean, I think the best part was that all these women celebrity are friends and helping each other…I think thats an amazing message– But the official list stated that the NUMBER ONE THING was “Kendrick Lamar” AKA the only male in the video (that wasnt destroyed.)(number 6 on the list was Taylors red hair, which was ‘obviously’ an ode to Ed Sheeran who didnt make it into the video.)

    My point is, I love this video and I hate the patriarchy.

  46. “Okay at some point I’ll have to get into more detail about how I’m super into Taylor Swift now”

    1989 got to us all, Riese.

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