#shoutout to lover being the first album that made me sing wrong lyrics

[mystifiedmess]

happy third birthday lover, the hate you get is unjustified<3

[dreamaboutwhathappens]

the man was FILLED with easter eggs and metaphors. here they are!

1. being in the room where it happens

in the lyric video for the man, we see a woman working so hard to try and get to where all the men are -- on top, both physically and metaphorically. in the music video, we see The Man starting out here, just another normal day at the office. another normal day in charge, and on top.

2. “i’d be a fearless leader”

The Man not so much as walks into the room and makes a few comments before getting applause for his work. at the same time, every desk in this office can be seen with a mountain of papers, files, and books stacked on top of them. for all the hard work that these people are doing in this office, The Man gets all the applause for a fraction of it.

3. the subway

now, obviously what we have here is what you have on any and every subway or other form of local transportation -- that one asshole who feels entitled to take up as much space as he wants at the discomfort of everyone around him. while i could get into how mansplaining is a metaphor for men feeling the right to take up more space in society then women, i won’t. instead, i want to focus on all the little details on this subway that tell men they can. at the very, very top of the frame, we see text at the bottom of an ad that says “because you DESERVE what you want” and the posters on either side of The Man tell us “mother nature doesn’t stand a chance” and “capitalize on the feeling”. this is how society treats men. they should get to do whatever they want, based only on their feelings or wants. this notion will become important in the subway station.

shoutout to the girl in the miss americana hoodie! i think we can safely say she’s listening to lover on her headphones.

4. the newspaper

for this image, i turned the brightness WAYYY up so we could read the newspaper. the leading headline is “what man won the year in celebrity dating?” with the caption “who crushed it this year?” one headline says “years most eligible CEO’s” and another says “men in love in sports”. now, i don’t have to tell you that taylor swift was vilified for her relationships. these headlines show the difference between how men and women are treated when it comes to relationships. what’s it like to brag about getting bitches and models?

on the back cover, we see a contrast between how men and women are viewed in society. the ad dedicated towards men has a very strong and tough vibe to it, and the article beneath it carries the title “it’s men against boys with no ladies around.” in fact, the only mention we get of said “ladies” is in the “style section” where we see two sexy, rail thin women posing at fashion shows. while society views men for their strength, women are supposed to be objects of beauty and desire, and nothing more. 

5. here lies taylor swift’s reputation (and all her previous albums)

now, obviously, the sign says “missing, if found, please return to taylor swift” and grafitied on the walls are the names of the albums whose masters taylor does not own. remember when those ads on the subway told men that you DESERVE what you want? that’s what empowered The Men who stole taylor’s masters to take them. they wanted them, after all! let’s also remember that The Man is can be seen pissing on the wall in this shot. it’s a metaphor for The Men who own taylor’s old albums and are essentially pissing on all her hard work. we can also see “KARMA” written in big letters in the middle of all the albums, which invokes a lyric from look what you made me do: “all i think about is karma, and then the world moves on but one things for sure, maybe i got mine but you’ll all get yours”. pretty sure karma is coming for The Men who own taylor’s masters.

if you look closely, you can also see a sign to the left of The Man that says no scooters! sc*oter bra*n is not welcome at the 13th street station

6. “i’d be just like leo in st. tropez”

for your viewing pleasure, i have included an image of leo in st. tropez. we can see women in bikinis, and every sort of expensive, luxurious form of leisure you could think of. during the verse where we see The Man on the yacht, she sings “they’d say i hustled, put in the work, they wouldn’t shake their heads and question how much of this i deserve”. this is reminiscent of The Man when he was in the office and how, no matter how much work he did or didn’t do, he is heralded as a genius. the point of saying she’d be just like leo in st. tropez is not to try and call out leonardo dicaprio for going a cruise and having some fun. people should be entitled to celebrate and vacation however they please. the point is that women should be able to do the same thing.

7. The Man’s “walk of shame”

this is a metaphor for how men in society are treated when they take a misstep. while women can be criminalized and thrown the wolves, it appears that men always have people on their team, and in this case, hands lining up to be high-fived. men often are not held to the same standards as women, and even when they do something wrong, they face very little backlash for it, and normally have their own set of groupies or supporters telling them that they were really in the right (and they are allowed to believe it).

at the back of the hallway, there hangs a portrait of The Man pointing at the camera, as if to say “you ARE the man.” it feels like uncle sam, but in a “ i want YOU for us army whatever your heart desires” kind of way.

8. world’s greatest dad

the bar for men is so low that when they do the very minimum (in this case, merely look after their own child), they get commended for it. imagine if this were a woman. would she be applauded? no, she would probably be reprimanded for being on her phone and ignoring her child, like The Man did here.

9. bragging

this one is pretty self-explanatory. what’s it like to brag about raking in dollars and getting bitches and models? what’s it like when it’s all good if you’re bad and it’s okay if you’re mad? in this scene, we see The Man telling all his buddies about the bitches and models and dollars, and then freaking out on somebody. 

10. raking in dollars

who's on the 100 dollar bill? he is! the serial number on this bill also ends in 13. i thought there might be more hidden goodies here, but if there are, the video isn’t in high enough resolution to tell. the only other thing i can make out was that it said “for motion picture use only” which i thought would be an easter egg until i rendered it in photoshop and could read it clearly. oh well!

11. raising money for the women’s charity

a problem we see in society a lot is people of privilege being an ally only by action, not by everyday behavior. here, we see The Man benefitting a women’s charity, but all throughout the video we haven’t seen him go out of his way to respect or give a voice to women. even in this shot, a woman stands on the sidelines while The Man takes all the glory. while he raises money for women, he has no other character traits that show he actually cares about them. 

in a different shot of this scene, a water bottle from taylor’s merch can be seen on the sideline.

12. the unimpressed umpire

this is taylor’s dad! his name is scott. in a video full of mediocre men, scott is our resident Good Man :)

13. the freakout

in 2018, serena williams unleashed on an umpire who accused her of cheating and stuck her with her third penalty of the game -- penalties the whole crowd was certain she did not deserve. she even said at the time “To lose a game for saying that, it’s not fair. How many other men do things? There’s a lot of men out here who have said a lot of things. It’s because I am a woman, and that’s not right.” this is a DIRECT representation of this. it’s as they say, it’s all good if you’re bad, and it’s okay if you’re mad.

14. the hat

the hat our tennis attendant is seen wearing says “TS” in big letters, and in a circle around it, it says “i’d be a fearless leader, i’d be an alpha type.” taylor’s dad can also be seen wearing this hat.

15. the one where lover is NOT the happy couple’s first dance

first of all, this shit makes me SO uncomfortable. this is obviously an allusion to all the men who marry MUCH younger women, which is poignant because, again, taylor suffers mercilessly for her relationship choices, and they’re nowhere near as abhorrent as this. something also worth mentioning: scott borchetta is turning 58 this year. i’ll let you figure the rest out.

16. mr americana

any taylor swift fan will know that in january, taylor released a documentary with an intimate perspective on her life titled “miss americana” which focused a lot on the struggles taylor has overcome in her career. choosing miss americana to be a part of this video is a wise choice, because it highlights those same struggles that taylor is tackling in this music video. we can probably assume that mr americana faces significantly less struggles.

every part of this poster has been revamped to be man-centered, even down to the star role - tyler swift, not taylor.

17. take two

here, our director tells The Man that he needs to be sexier, and more likable. this reflects criticism that taylor and other women in the public eye hear almost daily. as i mentioned before, women in society are valued only as objects of beauty and desire, and here, we see the script flipped to bring that to light. 

in this final scene, we leave the fantasy world of the music video that The Man is starring in, and go to what appears to be a woman-dominated world, insinuating that the universe of the music video is one opposite to our own. this drives home the claim that if taylor were the man, she would be the man.

18. dwayne the rock johnson

i thought that having the rock voice The Man was really poignant. think about the rock’s career -- started out as a wrestler, is now an actor, but he’s known for his kindness and his dedication to social justice. if you asked me if he had ever been a part of any scandal, i would tell you no. and that’s exactly who The Man is. that’s exactly who this song is about, and that’s who taylor is. she has had an insanely successful career spanning over a decade, crossing into multiple different genres and fields, and excelling at all of it. she’s friendly, hard working, a social justice warrior, and a philanthropist. but all of those things are pushed aside in favor of the negative. using the rock as The Man was the perfect way of finishing off the statement,

“if i was a man, i’d be the man.”