Representation of Gender in 'The Man' and 'Riptide'

A theme of the Riptide music video is abusing women and is referenced throughout the video, it is not shown to be a man abusing the woman but is referenced through intertextuality. The main example of this in the video is the stage girl who progressively gets more beaten up throughout the video like getting a black eye and smudged lipstick on her face which is shown in a close up shot of her face each time, also her facial expressions get worse and more depressed so her first appearance she looked clean, confident and beautiful then the second appearance she looked more beaten down and sad but still had a little confidence also her lipstick was smudged then in the third appearance she looks scared with all her makeup smudged and messed up then in the last appearance she looks sad with her makeup still smudged. This is a reference to a David Lynch film called Blue Velvet where a stage girl gets abused by a man (which suggests in riptide a man done it) all throughout the film.

In 'The Man' there isn't any actual physical abuse of women and it does go against stereotypes when you find out who the man is. However it does demean women and show them to be not as important and unable to do what a man does before the end of the video. Like when the mans on the train and he puts his cigarette ash into a ladies bag as if he's more important and to him she's just an object which links to the Van Zoonen theory where men and women are represented differently in the media therefore women are objectified. This is also shown when the man and his friends are in the strip club drinking off women stomachs. Women are also represented very sexually in the video like in the strip club or on the boat, the video uses Mulvey's male gaze in order to attract a male audience to the video but to also show how the man views some women.

The basic message that the video shows is how ' The Man' controls everything and does what he wants and everyone loves him, by 'the man' it means rich white men. This is shown throughout the video as the main man is always front of camera shots and always in the centre of shots. The plot twist at the end showing that Taylor Swift was in fact playing the man the whole time, implying that a women can be just as good as the man and do all the same things goes against stereotypes. This is hinted just before the reveal by her sitting in the directors chair and this scene is also reflexivity where a text is aware of itself as it shows the characters coming off the set. Riptide also shows how men do what they want through the abuse of women, reference of the stage girl and other ones such as where a woman is tied up. Riptide also has a lot of centred a-symmetrical shots giving a sense of forced perspective which references to the director Wes Anderson who's ways of filming and shots are used in other scenes of the video. Also Riptide has reflexivity as towards the end shows them shooting the music video and there is a lot of intertextuality in Riptide like references to Wes Anderson and David Lynch or the fake film Velocite. These are all examples of post modernism which both videos use. Overall both music videos have similar aspects but also have things that contrast.