Taylor Swift – Shake It OffBy Johrul Haque

Goodwins TheoryGoodwins theory is based on 6 main principles and these are applied to different genres:

• Links between Lyrics and Visuals

• Links between Music and Visuals (Complimentary, Contradicting or Amplification)

• Genre characteristics

• Intertextual reference

• Notions of Looking (objectification of women)

• Voyeurism (direct gaze, other people looking at artist, insight into artists life, screens and mirrors)

1. Links between lyrics and visuals

Taylor Swift sings the chorus of her song which is “shake it off”. Therefore the director uses a long shot to show the artist and the backup dancers shaking their whole body which is associated with the tittle of the song.

Taylor Swift’s lyric says “I’m lightning on my feet” and the visuals show a long shot of a man getting up on his feet as quickly as he can. This may connote that she has immense dancing skills.

Another lyric that Taylor Swift sings that links with the visuals is “that’s what they don’t see” the visual for this is a black piece of glass around the dancers eye which shows that he cannot see anything in addition he is doing a silly dance which may emphasize the fact that he cannot see what he’s doing.

2.Links between music and visuals

Every time the artists throws her hands up in the air it goes the same time as the beat which shows consistency of the music and visuals.

Another aspect that links between music and visuals is the cuts. Most of the cuts are found with the beat of the song. This helps the audience to visualise the cuts and edits and make the video a visual experience at the musical notes

3.Genre Characteristic

Costume: Most of the pop music videos have similar costumes and these costumes are funky. The costumes that are used are not clothes that would be worn by others on a normal day. However the artist is wearing a ballet dress which is associated with femininity.

Settings: there are very plain backgrounds and the setting seems like its in studios. There are not many urban locations in this video and there are not many different locations compared to other Pop music videoes.

4. Notion of LookingIn this music video the backup dancers are always looking at the artist if the artist is in the shot. This may connote that the artist is very special and is like an idol.

However if the backup dancers aren’t staring at the artist, the artist is looking directly into the camera which may suggest that the artist is trying to make a connection with the audience which is ideal because this may make some of her audience start looking up to her.

I think that there are approximately 134 close up shots of the artist. There are many reasons the director does this, for example multiple close ups are a way of promoting the artist and advertising the artist to the target audience. These close ups may also be used to spread the artists image through the music industry so they will be very popular. This will then lead to idolization of the artist. They will also show off the way the artist does her make up and certain features of her face such as the way her eye brows are done.

5.Multiple close ups of artist