In recent years, Taylor Swift has been vocal about calling out gender inequality in the music industry. There’s no mistaking that toxic masculinity is the theme of her new video for “The Man,” in which Swift plays a powerful and obnoxious businessman. Swift, wearing make-up and prosthetics to give herself a more traditionally masculine appearance, dominates the room at work, manspreads on the subway, and rages during a tennis match.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson also makes an appearance here, although not visually: At the very end of the video, he provides the voice of the “The Man” character as Swift, a herself, gives him directorial notes.
Swift really enjoyed making the video, as she said of the process, “I loved the months of prep, meetings, locating scouting, set design, mood boards, deciding every detail down to the wardrobe each actress/actor wore + working with them on set.”
She also tweeted about the video after it’s release, writing in some tweets, “Just sitting here pondering how happy I am that The Man music video is OUT. I want to say thank you to so many people- Gotta thank @TheRock for voicing The Man and for being so supportive of my music for years (and now my directorial debut!). […] My dad making his acting debut as ‘unimpressed umpire’ is a memory I’ll always cherish. Thank you to the entire cast and crew for helping me become the man I always knew I could be.”
Just sitting here pondering how happy I am that The Man music video is OUT. I want to say thank you to so many people- Gotta thank @TheRock for voicing The Man and for being so supportive of my music for years (and now my directorial debut!)- pic.twitter.com/6G9G21Lw8J
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) February 27, 2020
it’s so cool to have you be a part of this!! Thank you @jaydenbartels and @dominic_toliver for your amazing and hilarious reactions- and @iamlorengray your eye roll really was aStOnIsHiNg 🥰😘💗
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) February 27, 2020
My dad making his acting debut as ‘unimpressed umpire’ is a memory I’ll always cherish. Thank you to the entire cast and crew for helping me become the man I always knew I could be 😂
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) February 27, 2020
The video lines up with Swift’s previous explanation of the song: “So many of these things are ingrained in even women, these perceptions, and it’s really about re-training your own brain to be less critical of women when we are not criticizing men for the same things. […] We [women] have to curate and cater everything, but we have to make it look like an accident. Because if we make a mistake, that’s our fault, but if we strategize so that we won’t make a mistake, we’re calculating.”
Watch Swift’s “The Man” video above.
Lover is out now via Republic. Get it here.
