I’m going to state right up front that my opinion about the song “Blurred Lines” may be in the minority. After all, it spent twelve weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart, so obviously there are folks bopping along to the catchy beat and thinking it’s a fun little summer tune. But you know what? It’s not. Go ahead and call me crazy, but in my book a song that includes the line, “I”ll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two” isn’t a light ditty about female empowerment and liberation – as some defenders have claimed.
If you read the song’s lyrics – and I did, several times – it suggests that women are simply befuddled, sex-crazed objects who have no idea what they want. As the song says, we try to be “good girls,” but what we don’t realize is that we’re actually just lustful nymphomaniacs. Who knew! Over and over Robin Thicke chants, “I know you want it,” before going on to say:
But you’re a good girl/The way you grab me/Must wanna get nasty/Go ahead, get at me.
Oh, those pesky “blurred lines.” They make it so darn difficult to tell the difference between a woman who’s saying no and meaning it, versus a woman who says no and doesn’t mean it! Egad, how’s a hot-blooded male supposed to tell the difference? Women are just sex-crazed animals, according to the song, and we don’t know what the hell we want. To wit:
OK now he was close/tried to domesticate you/But you’re an animal, baby/It’s in your nature
Yeah, that’s it. We’re animals. We just want to f**k incessantly – it’s in our nature! You know what else we are? Depending on which version of the song you hear – either the unrated or the “clean” one – we’re either the hottest “bitch” or “ho” in the place, Aww, you mean it? I’m blushing. Thanks, Robin.
For all that I despise about the song, the video is just as bad. This features Robin Thicke and his male posse with their clothes on, catcalling and ogling the nearly naked women prancing around them. Nearly naked, that is, except for their tiny thongs and occasional strips of clear plastic – yes, plastic – wrapped around them. My favorite shot is the tiny stop sign perched above one model’s pert butt. Why so tiny? Because, as Elizabeth Plank points out in her excellent article on Policymic, “sometimes stop really just means go.” We want it, remember? Don’t forget, ho is shorthand for whore.
In case I had any doubt as to whether I just wasn’t getting the true meaning behind the song and video, Robin Thicke has set me straight. In a GQ interview he admits that he tried to degrade women. Yes indeedy. Thicke says “We tried to do everything that was taboo. Bestiality, drug injections, and everything that is completely derogatory toward women.” To drive home his point he makes certain we know that the video was directed by a woman. So . . . what? Does that somehow imply that it’s been “blessed” by the rest of womankind because one of us chose to direct it? Last time I checked, director Diane Martel had not been appointed our spokesperson.
Thicke has since done some furious backpeddling after the GQ interview came out, saying that what he said was taken out of context and what didn’t come across is the fact that he was joking. People, c’mon! It’s just a funny joke, right? The thing is, though, I don’t see anything blurry about lack of sexual consent. As I pointed out in a post a couple of weeks ago, lack of consent is clearly defined: it’s called rape.
But let’s not let Mr. Thicke get the last word here. For that I leave it up to the Law Revue girls and their hilarious parody. Please remember to follow me, and enjoy!
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