Taylor Swift is the man, no seriously, she’s the man. Thursday, February 27, 2020, Taylor Swift released her music video for her song “The Man.” In just fifteen hours, the music video already has 7.9 million views on YouTube.
After a month of teasing the upcoming music video, it has finally arrived. Taylor transforms into Tyler Swift, her male ego, to bring her feminist anthem “The Man” from her “Lover” album to life. Taylor did not hold anything back when it comes to addressing the issue of sexism, double standard the women face out in our society, and toxic masculinity. The main character in the video gets to do whatever, whenever, he wants.
In addition to swift performance, we also find hidden clues throughout the video. At the beginning of the music video, we see Taylor (Tyler) manspreading, smoking and flicking cigar ashes in a woman purse on a crowded subway while not having a care in the world.
Once off the subway car, we see Swift proceed to urinate on a subway wall because she’s a man and can do that. The first set of clues is the wall. We recognize all of Taylor’s Previous album names graffiti on the subway station wall along with a sign that reads “Missing If Found Return to Taylor.” For those of you who don’t know, back in June 2019, that former CEO Scott Borchetts of Big Machine records sold Taylor entire music catalog to Scotter Braun. Swift was upset at this and made it known publicly.
The drama continued when Swift was recognized for Artist of the Decade at the American Music Awards in November 2019. She was planning on signing her hits but blocked by Big Machine records. However, she eventually sang her hits and opened with “The Man”.
Swift didn’t stop there in this scene. We see more shade thrown, as there is a sign that reads, “No scoters allowed” aiming at Scooter Braun; someone Taylor continues to have a public feud with on social media. The final clue present is in the poster for “Mr.Americana,” which is a change from the singers Netflix documentary Miss Americana.
The next scene cuts to Tyler Swift, the businessman taking a call on an expensive yacht surrounded by women. Sound familiar? Well, this is something similar to the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street,” and to reinforce this is the lyric “I’d be just like Leo in Saint-Tropez.” Referring to Leonardo DiCaprio taking women on extravagant vacations.
Up next, we see Tyler running down a hall of 19 hands. What could this possibly mean 19 hands? Well, The video, released on February 27, which is an essential day in history. The Supreme Court upheld the 19th Amendment back on February 27, 1922, the voting right for women. Earlier this week Taylor hinted this by tweeting “There are 19 hands in the hallway…but only two days until The Man Music Video.”
Now we are at the park; we see the man wanting to get validation for being a good father from others around him. When his daughter is sitting there, and the father starts petting his daughter like an animal.
For the final scene, at a tennis court where Tyler Swift gets into a confrontation with the tennis umpire. Spoiler alert, the ref in that chair, is Scott Swift, Taylor’s father. AND there is more, the male voice arguing with Taylor dad is the one and only Dwyane The Rock Johnson, which leads us into the credits. While the credits are rolling, we see all the makeup put on Taylor to transform her into “The Man.”
You can stream the album “Lover” on all streaming services and watch the music video for “The Man” here.