Despite Taylor Swift’s pervasiveness, it’s probably more likely that Gen Zers would associate the word “fortnight” with the misspelled (as “Fortnite”) video game of the same name. As opposed to, you know, Swift’s first single from the song-packed album that is The Tortured Poets Department. And they certainly wouldn’t associate it with its actual definition: “a unit of time equal to fourteen days (two weeks).” For those previously unschooled in this highly British/highly Austenian term, Swift has decided to bring it back into the mainstream. Along with the idea that being in love—unrequited or otherwise—(especially as a woman) and being artistically inclined (especially as a woman) is a recipe for ending up in the loony bin. Or at least being branded as “crazy.” Not quite “right” in the head.
In fact, this has always been the unfortunate case for women. And this is precisely why Swift gives callbacks to artistic women of the past (including the likes of Emily Dickinson and Clara Bow) while imprisoned in the mental institution of her self-directed video for “Fortnight” featuring, unexpectedly, Post Malone (who was just as unexpected in the part of Beyoncé’s romantic interest for “Levii’s Jeans” from Cowboy Carter). Those who have watched Swift flout the so-called rules when it comes to how many times one is “allowed” to write a song obsessing over the details of a failed relationship will understand, then, why she might fear getting thrown in the booby hatch (even though no pop star has more of a right to be afraid of that than Britney Spears).
This phobia comes to light repeatedly in the imagery presented throughout The Tortured Poets Department. And it’s all established with the first verse in “Fortnight” that goes, “I was supposed to be sent away/But they forgot to come and get me/I was a functioning alcoholic/‘Til nobody noticed my new aesthetic” (this concern about being “sent/taken” away also shows up in Midnights’ “Hits Different” via the lines, “Is that your key in the door?/Is it okay?/Is it you?/Or have they come to take me away?”). Apart from the fact that this sounds vaguely like what happened to Lizzy Grant in terms of being “sent away” to boarding school for her early-age alcoholism, it also does set the tone for Tay’s “new aesthetic” (that she introduced at the 2024 Grammys in her white ball gown with black elbow-length evening gloves) in the “Fortnight” video: Emily-Dickinson-in-a-mental-institution-chic (and yes, it’s been overly spotlighted this year [for the ostensible marketing tie-in of TTPD] that Swift is distantly related to Dickinson—they’re sixth cousins…three times removed!). Or, if you prefer, Clara-Bow-in-a-mental-institution-chic. Take your pick.
Considering Swift names a song after the silent movie actress on TTPD, it’s only natural that Bow’s signature look (as it pertains to her maquillage) should be mimicked here—along with the music video’s own mimicry of a silent movie aesthetic. Particularly as that song (“Clara Bow”) alludes to the ways in which the entertainment industry chews up and spits out women—no matter how successful—like grist for the mill. Particularly once a “newer (read: younger) edition” comes along. This very thing happened to Bow when silent movies turned into “talkies” and she couldn’t successfully make the transition (it was her Brooklyn-y accent, goddammit). Swift likely marvels, at times, over her contrasting ability to continue enduring not only in a marketplace with ever-changing whims and tastes, but in one that doesn’t exactly believe in “romance” anymore. Funnily enough, it doesn’t seem like Swift herself is a “romance acolyte” anymore either…that is, if the reams of lyrics on TTPD are anything to go by.
So it is that the image of her waking up chained to a bed frame affixed to the ceiling of her “cell” (all topsy-turvy, like her love life) is what opens “Fortnight.” Followed by a nurse delivering her dose of “Forget Him” pills. This being a nod to the lyrics, “I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary.” Yes, that must be why she’s still trapped in this institution (prison itself is also frequently wielded as a metaphor on the album). One that she can only get out of by traveling through the “secret gardens of [her] mind” (a lyric from “I Hate It Here”). And so she does, walking through a door that leads into a more Kafkaesque administrative room. In walking through it, her dress changes from a white gown to one of black Victorian mourning (and this is where she looks quite Dickinsonesque). Sitting down at a typewriter (cue the lyrics on “The Tortured Poets Department” that go, “I think some things I never say/Like, ‘Who uses typewriters anyway?’”) across from Post Malone’s, the two both write their side of the story, with colors eventually spilling out of the top (his blue, hers pinkish—how gender normative) and rising up to clash against the other’s story. Clearly, they have some opposing opinions on how it all went down.
As their colors touch, however, things go into flashback mode, with Swift (now dressed in pants and a jacket) and Post (dressed in the same pants and jacket as Swift) lying next to one another—while Swift holds a copy of a book called Us (très original)—in a manner that echoes the overhead shot from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind when Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) are on the ice together (as Ariana Grande already taught us last month, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is very happening this year). But Swift subs out ice in favor of many, many white pages that we soon see are in a daguerreotype-like silhouette of her own head shape.
In the next scene, Swift runs to Post Malone and embraces him eagerly, even though, as the camera closes in to show him caressing her face and shit like that, it’s obvious she’s feeling kind of cringe-y because she can’t quite keep a straight face. Still, Post Malone being Swift’s love interest is believable enough thanks to the fact that she’s currently dating another grizzly bear named Travis Kelce. As they stare at one another from afar in a subsequent moment, the pages of “their story” swirl around them as Swift tries to reach out for him again.
Alas, this escape into the past was all in her head, nothing more than a memory (whether real, embellished or imagined). This we’re made to remember when we see her back in the mental institution—this time strapped into an electrode-based machine that looks like it’s going to give Swift the best electroshock therapy money can buy (for whatever bygone era she’s pretending to be in). Crazier than Swift is supposed to be, however, is the random cameo by Ethan Hawke as one of the doctors helping to administer the “therapy.” Except it’s not that random at all when you realize Josh Charles, who also co-starred in Dead Poets Society with Hawke, is one of the doctors, too. See how meta Swift just got…again? Another not-random-at-all-though-it-might-seem-that-way moment occurs when a black dog crosses into the scene as well. But no, “The Black Dog” is a song on TTPD, not to mention the name of a pub in London (with Swift’s pointed specificity in mind, that’s definitely not a coincidence) and known for being a harbinger of death and/or a messenger of evil/from hell. So yeah, the tortured relationship “Easter eggs” abound.
By the end of the video, all of the pages in the Kafkaesque admin room are burning up around Taylor, as though the story between her and her ex-beloved never really happened. As though all the time and effort she put into turning it into art was for nought. Meanwhile, the Taylor of the “padded room,” so to speak, heaves a piece of furniture into the observation mirror, shattering glass everywhere.
So you see? When all is said and done, being a “crazy bitch” isn’t for the faint of heart (nor, apparently, is it suited to the physically feeble)…but Swift certainly knows how to romanticize it nonetheless.
