Taylor Swift's Opening Performance

Culture

I’m very confused by Taylor Swift’s opening performance.

She was the sexy ringleader of an Alice in Wonderland circus carnival, trying to squash out some nerd’s testicles with her stilettos. She was surrounded by fire spinners, stilt-walkers in fat suits, and tricycle riding maniac clowns. It made my eyes hurt.

It was a random assortment of bizarre and absurdist images choreographing a very simple and straightforward song. The performance seems to follow the trends set by a lot of the random and flashy pop videos these days—the Candy Land sequence in Katy Perry’s “California Girls” or any of Gaga’s videos. Taylor Swift’s opening performance came off as even more stilted and confused than these other examples because the song she sang is so unpretentious and simple. 

The performance was ridiculous and incongruous on so many levels.