Move over Charlotte York, there’s a new drag king in town. Of course, with Taylor Swift being a predictable “statement maker” (something quite apparent in the likes of “You Need to Calm Down” and Miss Americana), we already knew from the outset that “The Man” starring in her eponymous music video is Swift herself, looking like the same sort of generic bloke as the ones Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz briefly disguise themselves as in Charlie’s Angels in order to gain access to a communications-satellite company called Redstar (with, expectedly, Heart’s “Barracuda” needing to play at one point within the same series of connected scenes).
As such, she’s also very “good at business,” dressed in the requisite suit and tie as she looks at the city view from her corner office before going into the main room filled with underlings and sycophants ready to praise “him” for no reason other than possessing the assertiveness that comes with having a penis. Presumably leaving the office early, this act is followed by the slightly less believable sight of someone of his status riding the subway. Though Swift likely made this choice to show him manspreading and tamping the ashes of his cigar into an older woman’s purse. Indeed, he is sandwiched in between a total of five women and one black man. A fairly accurate ratio for an NYC subway. What’s more, Swift probably also wanted to offer some of her goddamn “Easter eggs” in the form of one of the passengers wearing a “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince” sweatshirt. Then there’s that ad boasting of an action movie called Man vs. Disaster with the tagline, “Mother Nature doesn’t stand a chance.” This surely alludes to the later fact that Swift’s male incarnation is voiced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (for this is the exact sort of “cinematic” schlock he would star in).
Soon after, “The Man,” “gets off” at the fictional 13th Street Station (perhaps even Taylor Swift didn’t have the clout to shut down Union Square) to relieve himself on a wall complete with just the type of “graffiti” one would expect to come out of Swift’s head, along with a poster next to “The Man” that bills him as Mr. Americana (likely what Swift calls Joe Alwyn behind closed doors). Yes, Swift, we get it. We know it’s you behind the disguise, no need to drop any clues. Least of all pissing out the words “The Man” in a glittery font. From there, we leave the realm of the plebes for a yacht inspired by Leonardo DiCaprio’s real life and his portrayal of Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street. Fittingly, he daubs his hair with some champagne as though it’s gel before choosing just one of the many model types on his yacht to sleep with. Leaving her behind the next morning, he walks through the hallway to a sea of disjointed from their bodies hands all waiting to offer him high fives apropos of nothing other than being a garden variety douche.
Sitting in a park, he disinterestedly pats his daughter’s head (one assumes he’s either divorced or just comfortable with adultery), much to the delight of the onlookers who revere him as “World’s Greatest Dad” just for showing up and doing nothing. In the next scene, “The Man” is in his element in a high-class strip club as he yuks it up with the fellas before the next day, when he appears at a “Women’s Charity” tennis match that features him pitching a complete tantrum that no woman would ever be allowed to get away with.
A title card reading “58 YEARS LATER” finds him marrying someone that was his age just a scene ago, clearly enduring the grossness of it all for the same reason as Anna-Nicole Smith did before deciding that, as he shoves their wedding cake onto her face, it ain’t worth it. A flash of “The Man” in all of his crude behavior–summed up once more by a mashup of his “worst of” scenes–is cut by the director, Taylor herself, who gives him the instruction, “Could you try to be sexier? Maybe more likable this time?” The defeated voice of The Rock replies back from Taylor’s man body, “Okay…okay. No problem.” To drive home the point about how amazing it would be if women weren’t subject to a double standard but instead treated as men, she tells a superfluous female extra, “By the way, excellent work over there Lauren. That was astonishing.” Clearly, she’s taken some inspiration from the many corporate dillholes she’s encountered in her lengthy career, channeling each one of them into an amalgam that is this high-powered man.
To iterate that women have to work twice as hard to prove their worth, the credits to the video show Swift going into makeup for her drag king turn as a misogynist (just another synonym for the average male in a position of authority) while the reminders, “Directed by Taylor Swift,” “Written by Taylor Swift,” “Owned by Taylor Swift” and “Starring Taylor Swift” flash on the screen. As though to say: Fuck you, Orson Welles.
While Swift’s portrayal of a man is certainly less offensive than the way most (gay) men in drag try to portray women, it can’t be denied that The Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up” is still the video that offers a far more profound enlightening on gender roles, preconceptions and behavioral expectations. Meanwhile, Joe Alwyn has a lot of thinking to do about his sexuality.
