Taylor Swift's New Video Channels 'Ghost in the Shell' Aesthetics, and No One's Here for It

People are convinced Taylor Swift ripped themes from 'Ghost in the Shell' for her "Ready for It" video.

October 27, 2017

Taylor Swift released her newest music video, this time for “Ready for It,” one of the singles off her upcoming album Reputation, last night. And, just like with literally anything Taylor Swift does, it’s been getting a whole lot of attention.

This particular video had a very specific visual identity, though. Swift went total sci-fi for the clip, and many started noticing that the video looked a little bit too much like the recent remake of Ghost in the Shell, starring Scarlett Johansson:

Ghost in the Shell bombed critically, and faced heavy claims of cultural appropriation. The original movie is based on Masamune Shirow’s 1989 manga of the same name, and many took issue with Johansson in the protagonist's role in the American live-action since the original character in the original anime is Japanese. Joseph Kahn, who also directed the video for Swift's "Bad Blood," has not yet spoken out about the inspirations behind this particular project.

It seems strange, then, that Swift would have wanted to emulate the aesthetics of a movie that really just wasn’t all that great.

But the Twitter machine was already running the minute the video was released. It didn’t take long for people to recognize the similarities between the two projects, and many people weren’t all that happy about Swift’s choice of visual cues.

While it's true that, in this day and age, an artist of Swift's stature is unlikely to do anything without being on the receiving end of at least some backlash, this particular instance seems like it could have been easily avoided.