Taylor Swift Is "The Man" In New Music Video

Taylor Swift recently released her video for her newest single, "The Man", from her current album Lover which has already amassed nearly 18 million views.

While Taylor Swift music videos are big productions, littered with hints about the underlying meaning of the lyrics, her new video The Man is on another level. It is arguably the best song off of her current album Lover and this music video marks her first solo directorial debut.

In the video Swift fully portrays the stereotypes and double standards that men benefit from by playing “The Man.” Swift is almost unrecognizable as she dons a suit, beard, and prosthetics to become her chauvinistic and pompous alter ego, which looks closely akin to Scott Disick.

In the first few clips, we see Swift as the high-power business executive in his corner office before strutting through fist-bumping employees and crumpling documents as female employees fawn over him and the office applauds his average achievements.

Many fans have noted similarities to the 2013 Martin Scorsese film “The Wolf of Wall Street” where Leo DiCaprio plays disgraced investment banker Jordan Belfort. Swift even mentions DiCaprio in the song with the lyrics “And we would toast to me, oh, let the players play/ I’d be just like Leo in Saint Tropez.”

The video cuts to him manspreading on the subway with complete disregard to the people sitting around him. Many transit systems have actually had to put up posters asking riders not to manspread, which is problematic, as encroaching on other passenger’s personal space should be a no-brainer.

After exiting the subway he is seen peeing on a graffiti-covered wall. The graffiti spells out all of Swift’s albums from 1989, Red to Speak Now, and a “Mr. Americana” poster parodying her new Netflix documentary. Fans had their eyes peeled while watching the video and noticed the wall also had two distinct signs that read, “If Missing, Return to Taylor Swift” and “No Scooters,” a diss to music executive Scooter Braun whom Swift has been feuding with for the rights to the masters of her early work.

As the video progresses, Taylor-as-a-man is seen yachting with beautiful women waking up from a presumed one-night stand, and leaving through a hallway high fiving hands emerging through the walls. Another nod to the inequities between men and women in relation to casual sex. Women are reduced to what society calls the” walk of shame” while men are commended. It goes along with her lyric, “Every conquest I had would make me more of a boss to you.”

While at the park with his child, Taylor-as-a-man is doted as “Dad of the Year” for doing the bare minimum share of parenting. This scene highlights one of the most undervalued disparity in society where mothers are the overachieving parents, who in some cases, are responsible for the majority of the parenting due to lack of participation from fathers.

The video continues in typical bro style with Taylor-as-the-man partying it up at a dim-lit club with scantily clad women, doing body shots while money rains down before cutting to him as an old man marrying a twentysomething woman.

The video ends with a scene of Taylor-as-a-man throwing a temper tantrum on the tennis court and yelling at the umpire played by Swift’s dad. This mirrors the inequality in sports. Serena Williams was criticized and punished for her reaction to the umpire at the 2018 U.S. Open final, however, many men have had full-blown meltdowns on the court without any repercussions, just look at hothead John McEnroe. Even upon Googling him, you’ll see numerous articles talking about his “Epic Meltdown” which has been made into a movie, John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection. Whereas Serena Williams was penalized, told to apologize and that she deserves a share of the blame.

Swift satirically ends the music video by reversing the double standard. As the director she tells her alter ego to be “sexier and more likable” in the next take and then immediately tells his female counterpart, played by Loren Gray who stood on the sidelines that she was “excellent and astonishing.”

There are many more "easter egg" hints to be found, but it looks like Swift is having the last laugh. The video ends with images from her transformation to The Man, In the media, Swift has been chastised as being a "serial dater" while taking over the world with her music and subsequently being a quote-unquote bitch for celebrating her success. If she were a man though, would society really think that?