Contemporary Music Videos: Lizzo and Taylor Swift
Two Contemporary Videos, One Theme: Gender
This lesson studies the two set contemporary music videos for the music topic: Lizzo’s Good as Hell and Taylor Swift’s The Man. Both videos use the theoretical framework — media language, representation, media industries and audiences — to explore ideas about gender, equality and empowerment, but they do so in very different ways. Knowing the specific details of each product, not just the general theory, is what earns marks in the exam.
Good as Hell was written and originally released by Lizzo in 2016, and the song featured in the film Barbershop: The Next Cut. The set music video was released in December 2019, three years later, once the track had become a ‘sleeper hit’ — a song that grows in popularity long after its original release.
The Man was released in February 2020 as the fourth single from Taylor Swift’s 2019 album Lover. By May 2023 the official video had reached 78 million views on Swift’s YouTube channel. The video won the VMA for Best Direction at the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards — Swift’s eleventh VMA overall, but her first specifically for directing, and she was the first solo female director to win in that category.
Good as Hell was nominated for Best Editing at the MTV Music Awards. The Man won the VMA for Best Direction in 2020, making Swift the first solo female director to win that award.
Media Language: Good as Hell
Good as Hell is a hybrid video, mixing narrative scenes with performance sequences. The colour palette and lighting shift as the storylines become more positive, reinforcing the song’s message of recovery and confidence. Iconography is important: instruments are linked to the characters’ success, and Lizzo herself plays piccolo and flute in a marching band scene. Close-up shots of Lizzo and the other characters address the camera directly, showing confidence and inviting the audience to share it.
Media Language: The Man
Unlike most music videos, The Man has no performance sequence: Swift plays a character role throughout and never addresses the camera directly. The video builds a linear narrative following the Man through a typical day — the subway, the office, the park — before shifting to more glamorous settings, a yacht and a tennis court. In Propp’s theory of character roles, the Man functions as a false hero: at the end of the video, credits reading ‘written by’ and ‘directed by’ unmask Swift herself as the real hero. Intertextuality reinforces this — graffiti reading ‘RED’ and ‘Reputation’ on the subway wall references Swift’s own back catalogue.
Costume and colour build the Man’s character: his business suit connotes power and status, and his gold Versace shirt on the yacht suggests wealth. The women on the yacht all wear identical yellow bikinis, stripping them of individuality. Gesture codes matter too — the Man manspreading on the subway and flicking cigarette ash onto a woman beside him both signal disregard for others. Camerawork consistently centres the Man in the frame, positioned higher than the women around him on the yacht, to signify his assumed dominance.
The video explores empowerment, especially for Black women, showing them supporting one another through difficult times. Lizzo’s star persona as a successful Black woman positions her as a hero-type character who brings positivity into others’ lives, and every character is portrayed as educated and talented.
The costumes suggest conventional beauty ideals, but a post-feminist reading might argue the video shows body positivity, since characters of different shapes and sizes are all represented positively. A less flattering picture is given of some men — a cheating boyfriend and an angry teacher — which could produce a negative response from some male viewers.
Swift constructs the Man to expose male privilege. In the office scene, three women scramble to catch a piece of crumpled paper he tosses aside — echoing the desperation to catch a wedding bouquet, and representing women as subservient. Newspaper headlines the Man reads, such as ‘Year’s most eligible CEOs’ and ‘Men we love in sports’, reinforce male stereotypes, while subway posters showcase hypermasculinity in action films.
In the park, the Man earns praise just for spending a few seconds with his daughter, representing an inequality Swift feels women rarely have recognised. In the tennis scene, after a 58-year time jump, the Man marries a much younger woman and pushes cake in her face — playing on stereotypes of arrogant, ego-driven men. Swift then appears as the director, telling her male alter-ego to ‘be sexier’ and ‘more likeable’, a pointed comment on how some male directors speak to female actors. The Man’s voice is performed by Dwayne Johnson, a star known for hypermasculine film roles.
Propp’s false hero is a character who seems to be the hero but is later revealed not to be. In The Man, the title character is the false hero — Swift is unmasked as the true hero (writer and director) at the end.
Media Industries
Good as Hell works as both a statement of Lizzo’s beliefs about equality and body positivity, and as a promotional tool to drive merchandise sales and income. The video was filmed at a real university for the Black community, and its wider success was boosted when Lizzo performed the song at the MTV Music Awards, where the awards ceremony itself acted as an opinion leader, raising the song’s profile still further.
Taylor Swift has sold over 200 million records worldwide and is the most-streamed female artist on Spotify. She signed a songwriting deal with Sony in 2004, a recording contract with Big Machine Records in 2005, then moved to Republic Records in 2018, the label that released Lover. Her music is promoted through the convergence of her official website, social media and merchandise sales, and through the 2020 Netflix documentary Miss Americana. Transforming Swift into the Man required a muscle suit and facial prosthetics taking four to six hours to apply each filming day.
Audiences and Contexts
Lizzo targets a specialised audience of females aged 18 to 24. The song’s appearance in a film soundtrack gave it crossover appeal, reaching audiences beyond her usual fanbase, and the varied cast of characters offers viewers opportunities for personal identification with the video’s narrative of recovery and support.
Swift built anticipation for The Man by posting a trailer on social media on 25 February 2020, then answering fan questions the hour before the video’s premiere two days later. Fans used the hashtag #TheMan to share reactions, and Swift thanked cast members personally online, including telling Loren Gray her ‘eye roll really was aStOnIsHiNg’. The video’s reach extended into politics: British politician Liz Truss quoted the song during a House of Commons debate on gender equality on International Women’s Day 2020.
Several details reference Swift’s real life. The tennis racket-smashing scene recalls John McEnroe, the 1980s tennis player notorious for angry outbursts on court. A subway poster reading ‘Capitalise on the feeling’ beside graffiti reading ‘Greedy’ is thought to reference Scott Borchetta, founder of Swift’s former record label, who owned the master recordings of her early albums.
The video was also influenced by the #MeToo movement; the lyric ‘when everyone believes ya, what’s that like?’ echoes the #believewomen slogan associated with the movement. Swift is well known for charity work, including a $1 million donation to the Nashville tornado relief fund in 2020.
Uses and Gratifications Theory explains why audiences enjoy the escapism and identification offered by these videos. Reception Theory explains why some male viewers may read The Man’s message as an unfair stereotype rather than accepting Swift’s preferred, feminist reading.