'Blurred Lines'? The misogyny is pretty clear.

This is a response to this video: http://www.vevo.com/watch/robin-thicke/blurred-lines-unrated-version/USUV71300526

When I watched this video for the first time, at the behest of a friend in a crowded café, my jaw dropped. It stayed there for the full four minute and twenty seven second duration of what is not only a sexist travesty, but the strongest indicator of our devolving collective culture I have witnessed in a long, long time.

In this hideously misguided piece of garbage, the pretence of being a music video and not pornography is entirely dropped. But at least in porn the man usually gets naked at some point. Not so here. Here, from the very beginning, it is only women who are to degrade themselves, only women who are to be vulnerable, while the master patriarchs prance around fully clothed in powersuits.

If you haven’t seen this video, either go and educate yourself, or just read this description. I would suggest that you never let yourself fall victim to this level of filth, but the fact that it came to not only exist but become horribly popular means that we all have to form our own opinion on it. This essay is an attempt to make you form the right one.

Nothing actually happens in the clip, apart from models walking around and gyrating in nothing but skin coloured g-strings and (bizarrely) white runners, accompanied by both farm animals and the be-suited singers, who croon about the ‘blurred lines’ between rape and consensual sex.

…Society, seriously, just… why?

So many problems, where do I begin?

First of all, the nakedness. Not only is it offensive that the classic body type of ‘big tits and no arse’, still both unachievable and idealised, is the only one presented, I’m pretty horrified that women actually agreed to do this. I really wish that in the whole world, there wasn’t a single woman who had so little respect for herself as to loll about a set naked for probably multiple days with a bunch of seedy bros while they sing about how ‘she wants it’. No amount of money in the world could make me want to be involved with this kind of project.

Don’t get me wrong. I am certainly not blaming the models or saying that their ethical framework is somewhat skewed for taking money for this. It’s not their fault, because, especially looking like they do, they’ve been raised since birth, well maybe puberty, to value themselves solely by their aesthetic contributions to society. They probably took being hired as a great honour and compliment, rather than being infuriated by the subject matter, what little there is of it. I’m not blaming them, I’m just saying that every factor contributing to the video’s existence is highly problematic.

Third of all, the accompanying lyrics. Probably the true horror of this song is its popular following. I think this is due, not just the fact that the average listener doesn’t give a flying fuck what’s in the lyrics because it’s catchy, but also because the lyrics are quite difficult to decipher thanks to the breathy Prince-style of singing/fast-paced indecipherable rap used. Once you google though, it takes five seconds from a catchy song to go to some perverted rape anthem. My personal favourite lyrics include ‘you the hottest bitch in this place’, ‘smack that ass and pull your hair like that’ and ‘I know you want it’ (how do you know she wants it? Because she issued her verbal consent, or because she ‘hugged’ you or danced with you? Awkward for you, a hug usually indicates the friend zone, not that she is particularly attached to your penis, or wants to be.)

Fourth of all, the kind of listeners this song has. This song is so popular it hurts me. It’s everywhere. I was on a bus with a bunch of 15-17 year olds last week and it started playing. Fifteen year old boys are hearing lyrics like ‘I’ve got something to tear your ass in two’. How do people even… come up with something like that? How does it enter your head, leave your mouth, get committed to paper, and then get played on the radio a thousand times a day?

When you sing along to this or dance to it, the message surely enters your brain more powerfully than if you read it. You can reject what you read, but not so easily what you hear, especially when it is couched in some, admittedly, goddamn catchy funk. I would care so much less if this song had less of a following but it’s one of the most popular songs in the world right now. How on earth have we not grown past this? How on earth are we still accepting a tune without further analysis that maybe it is undermining all the work we’ve done for gender equality and respect over decades and decades?

I’m not a typical stickler for regulation but the collective impact of this kind of music is a lot more dangerous than people give it credit for. I have never wanted anything off the air so much as I want Blurred Lines to disappear.

This leads me to fifth of all, why the fuck I care so much. When someone says something offensive, you can call them on it. When a movie sucks, you undoubtedly have the big review debrief afterwards. When a newspaper article sucks, you stop reading in the middle and complain to whoever is next to you. When a really catchy song comes on with undertones of rape, you’re so much more likely to say, ‘Schmeh, it’s just a song’, gyrate to it for four minutes until it finishes, and then move on with your life, crucially without ever asking the question – ‘Was that seriously just qualifying rape…?’

The comments for both the mainstream video and the uncut video were similar. ‘Awesome song’. ‘Love it’. ‘So catchy’.

I expected outcry, not adulation. Not only has society disappointed me by producing this deeply, deeply disturbing material, but it has also enabled it, nay, applauded it, on a mass scale. ‘Tis a sad, sad day when a song with the lines, ‘I hate these blurred lines/I know you want it/I hate these lines/I know you want it’ is the favourite of many men and most disastrously, women.

Of course, I have not been the first to make these criticisms. Women who like gender equality and not being treated as erection-triggering objects, or as I call them, feminists, have echoed my ‘#fuckdapatriarchy’ sentiments. This has seen a laughably inadequate response from the creators.

"I don't want to be sleazy, I'm a gentleman, I've been in love with the same woman since I've been a teenager," he explained, referring to his actress wife Paula Patton. "I don't want to do anything inappropriate." Thicke then went on to clarify the meaning behind the lyrics, saying, "For me it's about blurring the lines between men and women and how much we're the same. And the other side which is the blurred lines between a good girl and a bad girl, and even very good girls all have little bad sides to them".

From E! Online. Great sources in this essay.

Sorry Mr Thicke, not good enough. Your monogamy isn’t even related to, let alone a justification for, the worst piece of misogynistic objectification I have ever seen. Please don’t put your wife in front of you like some kind of femi-shield. Furthermore, your understanding of the word ‘inappropriate’ is severely limited, you might want to try ‘offensive’ in future. And as for the last point about blurring gender lines? They seemed pretty damn set in stone, when women are painted as the naked, frivolous, voiceless, makeup covered moving statues in your video, and men are talking, walking, acting, gazing, clothed controllers. So you can try and paint yourself as a revolutionary gender post-structuralist. Throw as much spaghetti at the wall as you can. None of it is going to stick.

My favourite part was probably the ‘good girl and bad girl justification’. Yes, you are a true Foucauldian artist, Mr Thicke, who just happens to fall back on the virgin/whore dichotomy as soon as someone asks you why you like making songs legitimising sexual assault. You go Glenn Coco.

By the end of this whole viewing/listening experience the only thing I wanted to fuck was the patriarchy. Phrases like ‘Robin Thicke has a big dick’ really don’t endear me to your cause, but the fact that you have a naked woman (you paid) lying on you will lead young male viewers to think espousing their penis size will get them laid. And then they wonder why, when they go to a club and randomly grind up behind the first girl they see in a short skirt, she doesn’t want to go home with them.

Hey everybody! Girls like respect. Girls like equality. Girls like it when they get to talk. Girls like it when you know their name or something about them. Girls like it when they aren’t treated like voiceless, clotheless, brainless receptacles. Girls also like it WHEN THEY AREN’T PORTRAYED AS SUCH.

Please everyone, stop watching it, stop listening to it. If you are going to listen to it, please just download it illegally. Not only is it not worth a dime, those fuckers should be fined for profiting off the misery of victims of misogyny everywhere.

Angry feminist out.

P.S. Read the lyrics. They really do all the work for me.

"Blurred Lines"
(feat. T.I. & Pharrell Williams)

[Intro: Pharrell]
Everybody get up
Everybody get up
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey

[Verse 1: Robin Thicke]
If you can't hear what I'm trying to say
If you can't read from the same page
Maybe I'm going deaf,
Maybe I'm going blind
Maybe I'm out of my mind

[Pre-chorus: Robin Thicke]
OK now he was close, tried to domesticate you
But you're an animal, baby it's in your nature
Just let me liberate you
Hey, hey, hey
You don't need no papers
Hey, hey, hey
That man is not your maker

[Chorus: Robin Thicke]
And that's why I'm gon' take a good girl
I know you want it
I know you want it
I know you want it
You're a good girl
Can't let it get past me
You're far from plastic
Talk about getting blasted
I hate these blurred lines
I know you want it
I know you want it
I know you want it
But you're a good girl
The way you grab me
Must wanna get nasty
Go ahead, get at me

[Verse 2: Robin Thicke]
What do they make dreams for
When you got them jeans on
What do we need steam for
You the hottest bitch in this place
I feel so lucky
Hey, hey, hey
You wanna hug me
Hey, hey, hey
What rhymes with hug me?
Hey, hey, hey

[Pre-chorus: Robin Thicke]
OK now he was close, tried to domesticate you
But you're an animal, baby it's in your nature
Just let me liberate you
Hey, hey, hey
You don't need no papers
Hey, hey, hey
That man is not your maker
Hey, hey, hey

[Chorus: Robin Thicke]
And that's why I'm gon' take a good girl
I know you want it
I know you want it
I know you want it
You're a good girl
Can't let it get past me
You're far from plastic
Talk about getting blasted
I hate these blurred lines
I know you want it
I hate them lines
I know you want it
I hate them lines
I know you want it
But you're a good girl
The way you grab me
Must wanna get nasty
Go ahead, get at me

[Verse 3: T.I.]
One thing I ask of you
Let me be the one you back that ass to
Yo, from Malibu, to Paribu
Yeah, had a bitch, but she ain't bad as you
So hit me up when you passing through
I'll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two
Swag on, even when you dress casual
I mean it's almost unbearable
Then, honey you're not there when I'm
With my foresight bitch you pay me by
Nothing like your last guy, he too square for you
He don't smack that ass and pull your hair like that
So I just watch and wait for you to salute
But you didn't pick
Not many women can refuse this pimpin'
I'm a nice guy, but don't get it if you get with me

[Bridge: Robin Thicke]
Shake the vibe, get down, get up
Do it like it hurt, like it hurt
What you don't like work?

[Pre-chorus: Robin Thicke]
Baby can you breathe? I got this from Jamaica
It always works for me Dakota to Decatur, uh huh
No more pretending
Hey, hey, hey
Cause now you winning
Hey, hey, hey
Here's our beginning

[Chorus: Robin Thicke]
I always wanted a good girl
I know you want it
I know you want it
I know you want it
You're a good girl
Can't let it get past me
You're far from plastic
Talk about getting blasted
I hate these blurred lines
I know you want it
I know you want it
I know you want it
But you're a good girl
The way you grab me
Must wanna get nasty
Go ahead, get at me

[Outro: Pharrell]
Everybody get up
Everybody get up
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey

 ...sigh. Fuck dis shit.