The Big Issue

 Taylor Swift - The Man - unseen text

Representation of Gender

Costume - The male character (Taylor Swift) is dressed in professional clothes, wearing suit and a tie; this encourages the audience to take him more seriously. The choice of costume implies that the character is important, and the blue costume is reinforcing his masculinity as blue is stereotypically a colour associated with men. The boat scene shows "the man" wearing a golden patterned shirt and white trousers, as well as golden shoes, sunglasses and a golden necklace. The gold colour palette could be there to imply that he's wealthy; the use of accessory could be challenging stereotypes that men don't pay attention to their appearance or the use of costume is there to reinforce his wealth and power. Even though in the office scene, everyone is wearing business attire and the women seem to not be sexualised, the boat scene does exactly the opposite. The women are all wearing the same yellow bikini and are very underdressed compared to the male character; the yellow stands out and draws attention to their bodies. There is a sense of uniformity as all the women are dressed the same and could imply that they are inferior to the man as he is the only one that stands out; the video also implies that he is the one that is paying for the boat and the drinks. Another one of his costumes is the one he wears at the park with his chid; he is no longer wearing a suit, but rather casual and comfortable clothes. The fact that he is not wearing his business attire implies that he has time for his child and that he could be a caring father. 

Props - 

Persona - The stereotypical idea of average men who get well paid jobs and work hard deserve model looking, conventionally attractive younger women is portrayed in the music video. There is nothing special about the male character, but he still gets a lot women just because he has a well paid job. Hollywood has continuously portrayed that idea and made average man heroes and aspirational figures to make the male audience believe that they can achieve that lifestyle too. One example of that is Transformers, where the lead male character played by Shia LeBeouf ends up with Megan Fox, or any Adam Sandler film. "The man" is portrayed as being very confident, but that maybe is meant to irritate the audience as his confidence would be interpreted differently if he was a woman. While he is walking around the office talking to his employees he is very aggressive and uses very open body language; later he opens his arms and everybody starts applauding him. They act as if he's superior and they are worshiping him; Swift could've done that on purpose and represented him as if he has a God Complex in order to mock a majority of men who claim to be above women. As she is the one playing the man, she over exaggerates the male behaviour. Another example of him having a God Complex is him having his own portrait in his hall in the shot where he runs down high-fiving  every hand that comes out the wall. The colourful hands seem like a part of the interior design and they further exaggerate his God Complex as he needs validation from other people. His behaviour during the tennis game is purposely over exaggerated and Taylor shows how men react to loss; the stereotypical toxically masculine man that is being portrayed cannot handle loss as he is told that he is the "alpha male" as stated in the song, and that he always should win. After he does badly in the game, he throws a tantrum like a young child and lashes out at the jury, starts throwing the tennis balls and then lies on the floor crying. The over exaggeration shows how men in society cannot handle loss and rejection.