Taylor Swift is the fries to Katy Perry’s burger in new LGBTQ pride video
Taylor Swift managed to set fire to a retro mobile-home community, host a pride event and rally a score of LGBTQ icons for her “You Need to Calm Down” music video, which debuted Monday.
She sneaked in a slew of pop-culture references, a political call to action and brokered peace with former nemesis Katy Perry too.
Co-directed by Drew Kirsch and Swift, the confectionary video is a smorgasbord of rainbow-painted pride references that builds on Swift’s recent streak as an ally to the LGBTQ community. She name-checked GLAAD in last week’s lyric video, and now she has the endorsement of nearly 30 LGBTQ celebs and friends.
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The singer-songwriter is styled as a glamorous-yet-bored trailer-park denizen who sets fire to her Barbie-inspired home. Cat memorabilia and a needlepoint of Cher’s iconic quote “Mom, I am a rich man” burn alike. And that’s when the real party begins.
Swift struts out into her equality-championing community to throw a glam summer bash.
“Orange Is the New Black” star and transgender actress Laverne Cox appears on her front lawn to water her, um, flamingos. “Modern Family” star Jesse Tyler Ferguson kisses his husband, Justin Mikita, during a wedding ceremony officiated by Ciara. And “Queer Eye” star Tan France drinks from a teapot as Swift is later joined by his costars Jonathan Van Ness and Karamo Brown at an actual tea party.
Singer Adam Lambert gives Ellen DeGeneres a “Cruel Summer” tattoo and “Pose” star Bill Porter walks a runway that divides Swift and her sun-tanning compatriots from an angry brigade of truly tragic-looking protesters. They wield those signs she pointedly tears down in the anthem.
Listen to Taylor Swift’s new pro-LGBTQ jam ‘You Need to Calm Down’ »
There’s a Pop Queen Pageant full of drag pop stars that devolves into a food fight just after RuPaul presents the winner’s crown. That’s also when Perry makes her appearance dressed in her Met Gala hamburger get-up. She sees Swift, who is clad in a french-fry costume, across the way, and it’s like there was never any bad blood festering between them. They’re not cookies, but they’ve certainly committed to the junk-food theme.
Meanwhile, Swift’s pal Ryan Reynolds takes it all in while painting portraits à la Pageant of the Masters during the colorful affair.
Swift closes the video with a call-out to fans to show their pride by signing her petition for Senate support of the Equality Act to demand that “our laws truly treat all of our citizens equally” on a national level. And that’s just the latest in her political endeavors as her new album, ”Lover,” due in August, will surely have more issues to blast.
Here’s how some of the video’s stars championed the collab:
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