Since its release date in July of this year, Robin Thicke’s song ‘Blurred Lines’ has been causing uproar in feminists (male and female) across the world, with its suggestions of rape culture and misogyny, due to lyrics such as ‘I know you want it,’ and ‘I hate these blurred lines’. The internet expresses a general outrage that Robin Thicke, a married man and father, is the face of a song which so openly objectifies and sexualises women, not forgetting its video of naked women dancing provocatively and being pawed at by the three singers.
The disgust for this song can be very easily seen in the feminist parody ‘Defined Lines,’ by Law Revue, three law students from the University of Auckland: Zoe Ellwood, Olivia Lubboch and Adelaide Dunn. The parody is a refreshing feminist inversion, a subtle telling-off of the ingrained misogyny of popular culture. It is not, as some on the internet have suggested, a generalised hatred towards men, but rather a generalised appreciation of women, a theme Thicke seems to have disregarded in the original version (if ‘I’ll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two’ isn’t disrespectful towards women, then I don’t know what is!).
Ellwood said in a recent interview that the purpose of the parody was to ‘flip the roles around to make a bit of a point.’ With lyrics such as, ‘We are scholastic, smart and sarcastic, not f***ing plastic,’ and a video of scantily-clad men being pulled around on dog leads and making sandwiches, they have certainly achieved this! As for the girls themselves, they are attractive yet also clearly intelligent. With an element of girl power thrown in, they make for ideal role models for young girls, especially given the culture they grow up in; surrounded by casual misogyny of which ‘Blurred Lines’ is not original, and present even in female artists such as Nicki Minaj’s ‘Stupid Hoe’.
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As with anything that goes viral, it has, of course, its haters. There are those who argue that the girls have taken their ideas too far, branding their song ‘sexist’ and ‘hypocritical’. It is ironic that those who are most angered by the parody are the type of people who probably provoked the parody in the first place; comments on the video of ‘Defined Lines’ on YouTube include ‘Good thing it’s a man’s world, you girls have your fun though,’ ‘Stupid f***ing feminists,’ ‘I hate feminists,’ and ‘This video is fake, those women are not in the kitchen.’ The whole point of the parody seems to have been missed by these sexist commenters – the song and video is meant to go too far! Only by using harsh lyrics and a shocking video (shocking mainly because it is men being sexualised rather than women) can the message be put across that it is wrong to sexualise or objectify anyone based on gender.
Law Revue are not the only ones putting up a fight about this song. Our very own University of Nottingham has recently begun an online petition to have the song banned from being played in the Student Union, succeeding in having it banned at the start of October. Commenters on the website explaining their reasons for signing, vary from women and men who think it is wrong to support anything that promotes inequality and rape culture, to women who have been victims of sexual abuse themselves and find the song a trigger to dark emotional memories. Nottingham’s fight to ban the song puts it alongside other Universities where the song is also banned: Birmingham, Leeds, Edinburgh, Derby, West Scotland and Kingston.
For Nottingham’s petition, follow this link: http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/university-of-nottingham-ban-robin-thicke-s-blurred-lines-being-played-in-university-of-nottingham-s-student-union?share_id=yNfkjKrZYL&utm_campaign=twitter_link&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=share_petition
‘Blurred Lines.’ It’s catchy and fun, until you look at the lyrics a little closer – then it becomes offensive. Law Revue’s lines such as ‘Tell me how it feels to get verbally harassed’ speak out against the objectifying nature of a lot of modern music, as do the universities who are taking steps to ban it from their Student Unions. What do you think? Are feminists taking their views too far? Or is it a necessary retaliation to a song which, though fun on the surface, encourages the view of female inferiority? Surely a song that involves three women arguing that it is wrong to brand any attractive woman as ‘plastic’ can only be applauded, by men and women everywhere!
Let us know your thoughts @HCNottingham!
Sources:
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/09/07/law-students-why-we-made-blurred-lines-parody/
Edited by Faiza Peeran