For twelve weeks Blurred Lines was at the top of the Billboard 100 charts and could be heard thumping from speakers everywhere. Sung by Robin Thicke and featuring prominent rappers T.I. Harris and Pharrell, this track was proclaimed the anthem for summer 2013 . At the surface the song is seemingly harmless with a cheery rhythmic beat and catchy lyrics, but when examining the song and accompanying music video, Blurred Lines is anything but harmless. Dubbed “that rape song” by many discerning listeners, Blurred Lines is a song about the blurred lines of consent. With gems such as “You’re an animal, just let me liberate you” and “I’ll give you somethin’ big enough to tear yo ass in two” featured throughout the song it is astonishing how popular this vulturine anthem was allowed to become.
The Blurred Lines music video is truly a work of misogynistic art. The video highlights three young and vacant looking women wearing nothing but nude colored thongs posing and performing infantile actions such as riding a bike or licking an ice cream cone. Accompanying them are three grown men, fully dressed in tailored suits, standing around casually while they watch and touch on the scantily clad women that stomp past them . The set is a plain pink backdrop with props like stuffed animals and alphabet blocks. Robin Thicke understands the blatant misogyny of his video, stating that it is “a pleasure to degrade women” in his interview with men’s magazine GQ. He goes on to claim that as a man that is happily married he is the perfect person to degrade women in jest of the popular culture . He believes that his song is a “feminist movement within itself” because it urges women to free themselves from their square, monogamous sex lives and have ...
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...Blurred Lines. Dir. Diane Martel. Perf. Robin Thicke, T.I. Harris, Pharrell. Blurred Lines. N.p., 20 Mar. 2013. Web. 19 Sept. 2013
Boardman, Madeline. "Robin Thicke: 'Blurred Lines' Is A 'Feminist Movement,' Lyrics Got 'Misconstrued'" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 31 July 2013. Web. 22 Nov. 2013.
Mosbergen, Dominique. "Robin Thicke's 'Blurred Lines' Dubbed 'Rapey,' Hit Song Under Fire From Critics." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 18 June 2013. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
Phili, Stelio. "Robin Thicke on That Banned Video, Collaborating with 2 Chainz and Kendrick Lamar, and His New Film: The Q: GQ." GQ, 07 May 2013. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
Thicke, Robin, T.I. ,. Harris, and Pharrell Williams. Blurred Lines. Interscope, 2013. CD
Trust, Gary. "Robin Thicke's 'Blurred Lines' Is Billboard's Song of the Summer." Billboard 100, 5 Sept. 2013. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
Stern, Marlow. "Spike Jonze’s 13 Best Music Videos: Beastie Boys, Kanye West, Fatboy Slim, and More." The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
The very title of the song endorses the use of the expression “bad b*tches”. In the music industry, the used of the word “b*tch” is not uncommon. It is most commonly used by men as a means of degrading women. Female rappers, like Trina, try to change what is a degrading word and turn it into a compliment. Female rappers like herself use this “bad b*tch” persona as a defense mechanism. They call themselves these distasteful words before a man has the chance to do it. They see it as strength and rejoice in beating them to the punch. It is a dangerous game they are playing. Throughout Trina’s song “Da baddest b*tch” she referred to herself as a bad b*tch multiple times. “I'm representin' for the bitches/All eyes on your riches” Trina’s depiction of a “bad b*tch” in this song is a woman that is concerned with money and the possession of money; A woman that would do anything to make money no matter the cost. This message is a harmful one. The word “b*tch” is not empowering; it is demeaning. Women give men an excuse to refer to them as “b*tches” because women call themselves’ and other women “b*tches” and “bad b*tches”. Women need to wake up and really that they will not be respected by men or either other women with such behavior. Calling yourself a “b*tch” or “bad b*tch” is a welcome mat to disrespect. Women should resist the catchy lyrics and clever hooks of the songs both me...
She is an advocate of feminism. Examples of this can be seen in her music videos and songs. Also, she is one the most powerful women in the entertainment industry, she has a large impact on the world, especially young women. She presses the issues of female equality in some of her work. (Brown, 2015) Taylor Swift made quite the statement in her music video, “Bad Blood,” released during the Billboard Music Awards 2015. It exemplified ultimate girl power. The video showed some very important points of feminism. A critique of this music video provides a better understanding of feminism and gender
...“Music in African American Culture.” Mediated Messages and African American Culture: Contemporary Issues. Ed. Venise Berry, Carmen L. Manning-Miller. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1996.
Rap artists’ using women in an offensive way in the lyrics and videos is something that has recently been taking affect. Many decades ago, rappers did not rap about women the way rappers
There are many women who utilize hip-hop to illustrate the struggles of their everyday lives (Durham). Beyoncé uses hip-hop as a positive tool. She utilizes hip-hop’s large fan-base to spread feminist’s ideas, such as women empowerment through her song, “Who Runs the World (Girls)”. This song highlights the strength of women, "Smart enough to make these millions/ Strong enough to bear the children/ Then get back to business" (Beyoncé). Other songs by Beyoncé that support her feminist views are “If I Were a Boy”, “Pretty Hurts”, and “Flawless”. Beyoncé’s song “Flawless” features A TED talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a feminist Nigerian author (Qureshi). Other examples of women in hip-hop that utilize hip-hop as a positive tool include India Arie, Erykah Badu, Janelle Monae, and many more. These women use hip-hop to counteract the negative images created about women presented by a majority of male hip-hop artists through their songs and music
The singer talks about a man who wants to be involved with her romantically. However, she is only interested in friendship and wants to do more conventionally masculine activities with the man who is romantically pursuing her. She talks about wanting to play in the dirt, getting into fights, and drinking till the early morning which actions that are typically associated with men. The lyrics of this song layout strict gender binaries as to what “bros” do. The key part of the song that addresses the contradiction of biological determinism and preforming gender arrives when the lead singer states, “I may have girly parts, but I have a boys heart”. The singer is addressing the fact that other she was born female her actions and behaviors are not determined by the gender she was assigned to because of her biological sex. This theme corresponds to the music video by which the female artists have visibly apparent underarm hair, displaying their defiance to what is expected of females by not preforming their gender and engaging in altering their secondary sex characteristics through hair
MIA has had two separate incidences of censorship. Fist with their song “Born Free” which was banned from Youtube due to its violent images or been being beaten and shot to death by police. Next came censorship by MTV and “Late Night With David Letterman” when their song “Paper Planes” incorporated gunfire into its background. Jadakiss’ song “Why” is not only a protest song but also a highly censored song and even banned to some extent. “Why” features the lyrics “Why do niggas push pounds of powder? Why did Bush knock down the towers?” which shows Jada’s belief that Bush was involved in the 9-11 terrorist attacks. The music video for “Why” during this segment shows a clip of a man holding a sign that says “Buck Fush” obviously a spoof for the real words “Fuck Bush”. Commentator Bill O’Reilly even went as far to state the President Bush should have sued Kiss for slander. The Game came under fire for his song “Red Game” after it was banned from MTV, BET, and the radio due to its reference of gang life. Youtube did not ban the song, and it has received over 10 million views indicating it was very popular even with the ban on major networks. The next song I remember hearing in middle school, and even though it had bad lyrics it never effected me in any negative way. This song would be “Fuck it” by Eamon. Many stations refused to play the song at all, others simply just censored the obscene word. This did not stop the song from being popular though, it topped charts for 4 weeks. Lady Gaga had her popular song “LoveGame” banned from the radio for it’s suggestive lyrics of “I want to take a ride on your disco stick”. She also faced censorship for her song “Judas” which seen as office to the Christian Religion. Adela, someone who I never thought of facing censorship, faced it when her song “Rolling in the Deep” contained the word shit in the line “ Go ahead and lay me out and I’ll lay
Fashion trends, technology trends, and finally music trends define an a time. However these trends never focus on is how some of our top artist today are the most annoying, untalented singers of their generation. These so called talented famous people have taken abuse of today’s society by manipulating the ethos of the teens and children. These “role models” have just become plastic robots that no longer convey meaningful messages but thrive on the fame and fortune. In 2012 one of the most nationally hated songs was Rebecca Black’s Friday. This one-hit wonder, produce this single not based on her talent but on her family’s money, hoping to turn her into a pop star. However, it seems that all that money could have been put to use elsewhere like singing lessons, as a result, her single turned out to be an extremely autotuned song. Though it does not stop there. In her single she sung in such a nasal tone that it would haunt her for the rest of her career. Critics say even now that her voice is still heard by was in no way pleasant and many criticized her for having absolutely no talent in singing.
Herein lies the problem that plagues Hip Hop: the most prominent artists continue to use their social influence to spread words of misogyny and sexism instead of equality and change. These artists are never challenged for their use of demeaning language largely due to the fact that these words have become so prominent that they have lost all meaning. This loss of value leads to lines such as “You ain’t gonna let me fuck you and I feel you / But you gone suck my dick, or I’ll kill you.” (Chief Keef “You”) becoming as frequent as the word “the”. The general hatred of Hip Hop and its artists can be attributed to this immense use of misogynistic words and general vulgarity, which at times is directed at women
“I got a a$$ so big like the sun”(Look Back At It),this is one of Trina 's dirtiest lyrics. Rihanna in her song even say , “suck my cockiness, lick my persuasion”(Cockiness). Lyrics like this are common in songs by many black women in the music industry such as Lil Kim, Janet Jackson, Salt N Pepa , Ciara, and the list goes on and on. These lyrics send the message that women songs should contain vulgar language and that women should want to look like the artist that performing these lyrics. Just like The Commodores say, “ She`s a brick house. . That lady 's stacked and that 's a fact”. (Brickhouse) Generations are growing up with this perception that body parts are a commodity. Girls aren 't born hating their body , we teach it to them through the music and other forms of popular culture. Black women in the music industry are upholding the ideal body image for women more than promoting the a positive body image to those who looks up to them.
When I just started researching for this paper, I had difficulties on finding the song that arouses my interest, so I decided to go to Billboard to look for an interesting song. As I went down the list of Hot 100 on Billboard, a song with the title “Royals” by a 17 year-old New Zealand singer caught up my attention. The song is currently No.3 on the chart, but it was the No.1 song last week and it stayed as the most popular song for several weeks after being on the chart for 22 weeks. What makes this song so popular? What story or moral is this song trying to tell its listeners? With these question bear in mind, I decided to take a deeper insight into this song “Royals”.
Right away Macklemore establishes his credibility and knowledge, ethos, by stating, "When I was in the third grade I thought that I was gay, 'Cause I could draw, my uncle was, and I kept my room straight" (Haggerty, Lewis, Lambert, 2102). With such a forceful statement, he shows that he can relate to this issue, which gives him the credibility that people look for in such an important topic. By speaking of personal experience, this gives the audience a closer look into his life and may feel a connection that many people might need to relate and understand the lyrics or topic of the song. With the song beginning with an anecdote about Macklemore as a third grader fearing he was gay brings a great sense of the ethos appeal. This directly illustrates society’s corruption of an innocent child’s mind with the fear of being gay and believing that being gay would be a fault. This opening anecdot...
The song is basically singing about a girl that was a gold digger. Kanye West doesn’t know how to use language that is PG because in multiple lyrics, he uses the N word, the F word and other swear words. This song was originally to be sung by a female rapper, Shawnna, but she decided against it in her album. Kanye West decided that he could use it and he believed it would be a hit. Judging from the charts, it was. One of the lyrics says, “Now I ain't sayin she a gold digger, But she ain't messin with no broke n****s,” (Gold Digger, Kanye West) which is saying that she basically is a gold digger but Kanye isn’t just going out and saying it. Since this song was originally to be sung by a girl, we can infer that she was saying “I’m not a gold digger but I don’t date poor guys,” therefore she is avoiding the topic to some
The tone of the lyrics perfectly exemplifies Louis’ contemplation or his inner dilemma as a black man. In his lyrics, Louis examines his identity as a black man and declares that his only sin was his skin. The strong statement behind Louis’ lyrics served to