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Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift plays a spreading male entrepreneur, smoking cigars and going to a strip club in the new video for his title, The Man.
The song is taken from his seventh studio album, Lover, the first new music released since leaving Big Machine Records.
It targets male music executives – especially Scooter Braun, which bought its latest catalog last year.
The credits emphasize that the video was produced, produced and owned by Swift.
In the video, the main character, in heavy prosthetics, stops to relieve himself against an underground wall that has been graffitied with the names of Swift’s first six albums – all of which belong to the Big Machine label.
Pinned to the wall, a poster reads: “Disappeared. If found, return to Taylor Swift”. Next to that, there is a sign “no scooters”.
It was the last shot fired in her war with Braun, whom she accused of trying to “dismantle” her “musical heritage” after buying Big Machine for $ 300 million (£ 237 million) in June.
In November, Swift claimed that founder of Braun and Big Machine, Scott Borchetta, prevented her from playing a mix of her former American Music Awards successes.
They denied the claims and the performance went as originally planned.
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Taylor Swift
Braun then begged her to end the public campaign against him, claiming that his family had received death threats.
The singer made a subtle wink to their spat during her performances at AMA, where she won six awards, including that of the artist of the decade.
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She went up on stage wearing a white prison style shirt stencilled with the names of the albums in question, while interpreting old and new songs.
While receiving another artist of the decade award from the Billboard Awards, Swift called Braun directly, saying that his treatment had been “the definition of toxic male privilege”.
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Taylor Swift
“The man” in the video has more than a passing resemblance to the character of Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street (the song refers to the playboy lifestyle of DiCaprio), as he is praised for his commercial achievements and to be the “biggest dad in the world”. “while getting up to nothing.
It is a thinly veiled attack on the disparity between the way men and women in the same roles are perceived by society.
The lyrics include the words: “I’m so tired of running as fast as I can / I wonder if I would get there faster if I were a man / And I’m so tired of them coming back on me / Because if I were a man, then I would be the man “
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Taylor Swift
At the end of the clip, the director, Taylor Swift, in real life, asks his male counterpart – voiced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson – if he could start all over but this time make it “sexier”.
Swift is likely to play the song when it makes headlines in Glastonbury later this year.
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Taylor Swift
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