Robin Thicke released a song called “Blurred Lines” in the spring of 2013, that received a huge backlash. People were outraged with the lyrics and the music video. While the song’s popularity has dwindled as time has gone by, I think the song and the comments on the song are still relevant to issues and topics of discussion going on right now. “Blurred Lines” perpetuates an accepted ideology pertaining to men and their obsessive sexual thoughts of women.
The music video shows men as creatures who see women as sexual objects. In the video the women walk around in nude and white skimpy outfits and do not speak or sing. They simply walk around and dance around as the men stare at them and sing about their bodies. And while, yes, this is offensive to women, that is an entirely different analysis that has been made often enough. Not given as often is the analysis that points out how offensive this is to men. It reinforces this idea we see throughout the media that men care about sex and only sex. The men stare at the women’s butts and boobs throughout the entire video, never appreciating something deeper than the physical qualities of the women. The song also never refers to the women as women. They are only ever called girls, animals, or b*tches. This further strengthens the idea that men see women as something less than equal human beings.
Lyrics in the song make it seem like men always assume that women want to have sex with them and find them attractive. The line in the song that is repeated over and over again, “I know you want it. I know you want it.” The man in the video just assumes that all the women want to have sex with him and assumes that they all find him sexually attractive. That stereotype of men is really offensive because there are so many men who respect women and know that not all women want to have sex with men and know that even women who do find them sexually attractive do not always want to have sex them and respect that choice.
The song also portrays men as superficial and unemotional people who look only for sexual relationships, as opposed to relationships with emotional and intellectual aspects to them. At one point in the song, Thicke sings, “Yeah, I had a b*tch, but she ain't bad as you/ So hit me up when you pass through.” The lyric implies that men only care about women as sexual partners. The man has no emotional ties with the “b*tch” he had before and as soon as he sees a new woman he disregards the first woman. The idea that men cannot or will not form emotional relationships with women is extremely degrading to the integrity of men as a group.
I strongly admire your interpretation of how "Blurred Lines" is offensive to men. The song has received a lot of concerns with how it portrays women and I liked hearing a different perspective of the song, one with which I agree. Nice job!
ReplyDeleteGee willikers, it sure is refreshing to see more than the usual anti-male complaints I seem to always see about this song. I'll be honest, my heart sort of sank when I saw the song's title here, because I've come to assume that any article about it will only end in me feeling bad that I'm male, and that another man could be so atrocious as to make a song like this one. I agree completely that the song is offensive in both directions, and I agree that it absolutely portrays women as the objects that solely and completely occupy the male mind. Seriously, thank you for seeing that this offense goes both ways.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a really interesting analysis and one that I have never heard of before. You make a very good point that our society does not always recognize that we stereotype men as well. This new perspective is really interesting and definitely addresses an issue in our society.
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