Taylor Swift- 'The Man'
In Taylor Swift's music video The Man, she constructs herself as a powerful figure, challenging gender stereotypes of male vs female representations in many different social settings. For example, she is pictured in various workplace settings, playing a 'hero' character. This links to Richard Dyer's star theory, representing her as the main popular person everywhere she goes.
This music video also represents her as a star as commodity, because she references her various merchandise products within the music video, such as an intertextual reference to her documentary on Netflix, Miss Americana. This links to the star as commodity aspect of Richard Dyer's theory, because she is referencing advertisements which allow her to make more money and generate income, as people who watch the documentary allow her to make money. By referencing this in her music video she is encouraging fans to do this, by going to later watch the documentary, so that she can generate income and profit.
Links to Goodwin's music videos theory-
There are multiple intertextual references within this music video, such as her references to her other albums, reference to her documentary Miss Americana, and
Summary of Theorists-
Richard Dyer's star theory- Dyer splits his theory into 3 main parts, star as a commodity, star as a construction and star as an ideology. Star as a commodity refers to the ability for the celebrity to generate profit or income from what they do, by using similar techniques to what they know has worked before, selling merchandise and promoting their products online eg. documentaries. This means that the star can make more money from what they're doing, ultimately helping them to be more successful. Star as a construction refers to their own public image (what the audience see from what they do), and how their public self is completely different to their own self, which they keep private from the media. The differences between these 2 versions of a star allow them to select what qualities their audience would desire to see in them, and perhaps shelter away what they don't want their audience to see. Star as an ideology refers to the ideas and values the star promotes through their work, and it can also refer to the ideas and values the audience can pick up from their music videos and other media products.
