A Swift strike on toxic masculinity
Dropping her directorial debut, singer-songwriter Taylor Swift released the music video for her song, The Man, in which she stars as, quite literally, the man.
In heavy prosthetics and a convincing drag, the 30-yearold pop juggernaut parades through the video as an obnoxious man who skates through life with ease, thanks to the privilege of his gender.
“I’m so sick of running as fast as I can. Wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man. And I’m so sick of them coming at me again. Cause if I was a man, then I’d be the man,” she sings in the chorus.
At the video’s end, director Swift asks her male character if he could try another take, but make it “sexier” and more “likable”. Swift used the video for the song off her seventh album, Lover, to highlight that she wrote, directed, and owns it, while taking a swipe at the executives she’s been publicly feuding with since June 2019 over ownership of her early catalogue.
At one point her character relieves himself on a wall bearing graffiti spelling out the titles of her first six albums, next to a sign that say “Missing. If found return to Taylor Swift” and another barring use of scooters. It’s an obvious jab at music industry mogul Scooter Braun, who has a majority stake in the master recordings of Swift’s albums.
Swift has vowed to re-record her earlier albums to create copies she owns, starting in November 2020, the earliest, she says, her contract allows it.
AFP