Taylor Swift’s “The Man” Music Video Features Hidden References, Her Dad, and More
The queen of music video Easter eggs, Taylor Swift, has returned! Taylor dropped the video for her Lover single “The Man,” which she directed, early this morning, and fans immediately began prowling for the hidden clues and references Taylor so gleefully sprinkles throughout her videos. One was a fairly obvious diss at music executive Scooter Braun, with whom Taylor has been publicly feuding over the ownership of the masters of her previous work.
In the video, which features Taylor in full hair and makeup as a businessman living the life of an alpha at work and play, Taylor-as-the-man is seen peeing on a wall covered in graffiti, and eagle-eyed fans noticed a very important sign hanging on said wall: a “No Scooters” sign. Ha! But that’s not the only thing significant about the wall; the graffiti is all her previous album titles, from Red to Speak Now to 1989, and another sign reads “Missing. If Found Return to Taylor Swift.”
Besides the Scooter diss, Taylor also sprinkled a few more fun tidbits into the vid, including a poster of Mr. Americana, a parody of her Netflix documentary. Even her father Scott Swift shows up during the tennis scene. No detail has been unexamined and no sly reference has been left behind, and we should expect nothing less from Taylor.
Fans also noticed that the video looks a lot like the Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Wolf of Wall Street, and that seems to be an intentional reference; Taylor hired Rodrigo Prieto, cinematographer on the Scorsese film, to work on “The Man.” Taylor also drops Leo’s name in the song, so the parallels make a lot of sense, and the song itself reminds us a lot of the plot of the Leo flick.
The video ends with Taylor’s character as an old man getting married to a much younger woman, and then moves into a montage of him acting like a jerk before meeting the director, Taylor herself. (The man character is voiced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.) “The Man” makes a powerful (and at times, very funny) statement about sexism and double standards in the workplace, at home, and in popular culture, and no one could have done it quite like Taylor.
“Just sitting here pondering how happy I am that The Man music video is OUT,” Taylor wrote on Instagram, celebrating the music video and everyone who helped make it. “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!)- 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 @loren your eye roll really was aStOnIsHiNg 🥰😘💗 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 😂”
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Image Source:*teenvogue.com
Source:teenvogue.com
