How The Handmaid’s Tale (Taylor’s Version) Minimized Trump’s Insult of Swift
Look what you made them do, Gilead.
(This post has no plot spoilers.)
An intense sequence in the penultimate episode of the acclaimed Hulu series The Handmaid’s Tale enamored fans and sent the entertainment industry abuzz.
The sequence made instant rounds across the digital sphere – not on account of its brilliant cinematography but because it incorporates a legendary pop star’s no-fucks-given hit song. Spot-on use of this particular song marks one of the most triumphant moments of the series’ six-season run.
Singer-songwriter icon Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” was initially released in 2017 in the rollout of the artist’s Reputation album. Today, the song stole the show for more than two minutes, overlaying Mayday resistors’ badass walk on a dark road. It was not your ordinary, subtle background score.
“Mayday,” which bears resemblance to our real-life Resistance against Donald Trump, is an underground opposition movement in defiance of the series’ fictional Republic of Gilead. Based on the 1985 Margaret Atwood novel with the same title, The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a dystopian society that seems less distinguishable from real-life America each day Trump is president.
Swifties, the name for Swift’s millions of diehard fans worldwide, were giddy about the song for reasons separate from The Handmaid’s Tale. The song version used by the series has subtle differences from the original recording. Anyone who has followed Taylor Swift recently knows she has been re-recording previous albums, the rights to which were more or less stolen from her by her former record label, Big Machine Records. Re-recording these albums – and suffixing “(Taylor’s Version)” to each album and song – makes her work hers alone. Long story short, Swifties are reading the tea leaves, convinced that the release of Reputation (Taylor’s Version) is not far off.
For Swift, the attention surrounding The Handmaid’s Tale finale and the series’ use of one of her best all-time hits, coupled with speculation on release plans for Reputation (Taylor’s Version), acts a welcome overshadowing of Trump’s petty comments about Swift last Friday. Returning from his bribe-collection tour in the Middle East, Trump posted insults directed at Swift and another American legend, Bruce Springsteen. He made these posts from fucking Air Force One. I won’t indulge him by repeating his juvenile comments here.
For Emmy-winning executive producer Elisabeth Moss, who doubles as the series’ main character June Osbourne, use of the cultural icon’s work is marketing genius. The free media generated by Swift’s name is sure to motivate Hulu watchers who are not caught up on the series to binge through episodes this week.
Moss, who attended Swift’s Eras tour concert in Toronto, revealed to Billboard she had “been wanting to use a Taylor song for many years.” The EP is grateful the show waited until now to use something from Tay-Tay, because “there could not be a more perfect song for a more perfect moment.”
In a statement to Billboard, Emmy-winning series editor Wendy Hallam Martin called the Swift song and the Handmaid’s Tale scene a “perfect pairing” that “just landed perfectly thematically, rhythmically and magically hit all the edit points.” I’m no cinematic expert, but I concur. It’s epic.
Watch the exhilarating two-minute and ten-second clip below.
Heroes wear red capes and red dresses.
The handmaids’ badass formation has echoes of the 2017 Women’s March in resistance to Donald Trump as well as the march to the polls from 2022-2024 to protect — and create — abortion rights.
Abortion rights advocates won six of six state ballot initiatives in 2022, the year Trump’s handpicked bought-and-paid-for Supreme Court overturned 50 years of Roe v. Wade precedent, allowing strict or total abortion bans to take effect in states across the country. In 2023, Ohio was the only state to hold such a vote. Its abortion rights measure passed easily.
Then, in 2024, the pro-choice side secured a majority of the vote in eight of the ten states in which abortion measures were on the ballot. They fell short of majority support in only Nebraska and South Dakota, but secured key victories in reliably red states Missouri and Montana.
As a wave of abortion rights restrictions passed in Statehouses across the country beginning in 2011, a common fixture in opposition to these measures was women donning distinctive red dresses and white-lined bonnets, the outfits worn daily by the handmaids. Their message was powerful — that men in the legislature were acting like men in the series by depriving women of bodily autonomy.
Stay tuned for another Handmaid’s Tale-related post from The Alt Media prior to the series finale, set for release by Hulu on Tuesday, May 27.
Hmmmm, I know for a fact if stinking tRump and minions don't like you, or whatever you're doing... Then for sure you're doing something amazing and correct. Every woman, rise up. I'm going out tomorrow and buying a red dress!
Hmmmmmm a Red Dress Momentum Movement!!! Let’s start it now! Pass the word!