A Song Analysis: Blurred Lines

Robin Thicke’s music video to his song “Blurred Lines” avidly contributes to the patriarchy, while portraying sexism, gender standards, and beauty standards. His music video can be analyzed from a feminist theory approach, as it’s evident that his song and video contribute to a patriarchal society and its inherently sexist and sexualized ideologies. The ideology behind the song and music video is purely sexual and about male dominance. The lyrics to the song and actions in the video exhibit extreme over sexualization and objectification of the women. Analyzing this piece of popular culture through a feminist approach opens up a provoking conversation about how popular culture functions in a patriarchal culture. Analyzing pop culture though a feminist theory can allow for a larger variety and more in-depth analysis about the social aspects and political agenda within popular culture.

The essay, “From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos,” discusses the pervasive misogyny found in hip-hop lyrics.The author, Joan Morgan, argues that by comprehending what is occurring in the hip-hop culture to generate

All over history, music has been a critical commitment to people’s lives. Various kinds of music have been created after some time and impact people in unique ways. Of the numerous kinds that have come to frame, hip-hop has turned out to be more prominent inside today's standard pop culture. Alongside the formation of music recordings, hip-hop's popularity has taken off and changed from various perspectives. Inside the music videos of most hip-hop artists, men and women are portrayed in unmistakable and clear ways that may subconsciously influence our perspectives of the standards of today’s society. Hip-hop music videos are so present among the people that these depictions of sexual orientation parts frequently go unrecognized. The complicated

The corruptness of music today seems to be linked to the crude language and aggression found particularly in hip-hop and rap music. Some rap artists use vulgar language in their lyrics that are easily adoptable by teens (Holden). Not only have certain lyrics influenced the way teens speak but also their actions. An article on Headliners.org stated that “lyrics in the music are too violent and are to blame for many problems.” The problems range anywhere from suicide and aggression towards women to underage drinking and drug use. Lyrics are not only to blame, but also what people see in artists’ music videos can affect what they do (Doaks). The urge to emulate these rap musicians has escalated quickly causing a spike in rebellious tendencies among teens.

The Gayes’ lawyers simply decried Thicke and Williams as outright liars who emulated and copied one of legendary R&B hits, ‘Got to Give it Up’. An expert from Gaye’s family insisted that there were eight discrete elements present from ‘Got to Give It Up’ that were used in ‘Blurred Lines’, including the bass rhythm and melody, while Thicke and Williams denied these similarities. However, although Williams may have not explicitly copied Gaye’s song as he declared that he was simply emulating the R&B vibe, paying homage to the musician,

But overall, on the grand scale, majority of rap songs aren’t completely misogynic or only about women. (Adams, 2006) Instead, the songs-whether through its lyrics or music videos –contain misogynic elements. For example, rap music videos use derogatory words and images to depict women as hos, bitches, and gold-diggers, submissive, weak and very sexual

In most videos, women reveal their bodies in sexual ways with lack of clothing. Most teens claim that it is the beat of the music rather than what's going on in the video. For Example “Sexualized identity of Black women. For instance, in conversations, many of the youth said that it was the “beats,” not the lyrics, that are important to them about hip-hop. In this case attractive and highly feminine girls like Tiffany were among the ones that were able to perform and receive attention in this setting” by Andreana Clay,2003.There have been popular american hip-hop artists, such as Eminem, Ludacris that have increasingly depicted women as objects of violence. Studies have shown almost half of an music video involve sexual activity towards women .For Instance, “....policy statement that found 75% of music videos involved sexual imagery, and more than half involved violence -- usually against women.” Sid Kirchheimer,2003. Although some teens have said it was the beat, Artists have caused society to view women differently because of the image artists have left on

On March 26, 2013, Robin Thicke released the single “Blurred Lines”, a song that went on to be the longest running number one single of 2013 (Dredge 1). Thicke anticipated gaining fame from the song’s catchy beat, but the song would also bring him infamy, as many thought the song promoted misogyny and rape culture. Thicke’s hit single eventually reignited a debate over the role of sexism and misogyny in pop culture and music lyrics in particular. A brief analysis of contemporary popular music evidences that sexist and misogynistic themes are prominent within the lyrical content of many songs. Once one recognizes the almost undeniable sexism in a significant amount of popular music, it begs the question how to address this issue, if at all. Many feminists and harsh critics deride such sexist music and seek to ban and censor sexist songs. Others believe that chastising sexist artists can be useful, but banning such music is an inappropriate response. Others chose to ignore this issue, as they are ultimately indifferent to the prevalence of sexism in modern culture. In my opinion, many popular songs have disturbingly sexist implications and, while it is inappropriate to ban such songs, it is worth analyzing this issue and denouncing artists who are blatantly misogynistic.

My next song for analysis is, “ Sex, Yeah” by Marina Diamandis. The song begins immediately by mocking modern day pop culture. Just about every song you hear on pop radio is about sex. Marina repeats the word “sex” to lead the listener into thinking it’s another overly sexualized, shallow pop song. This first line, however, is pure satire and takes a direct jab at the shallow tendencies of today’s music.

Throughout time music has allowed people to express themselves in a whole new way and has made it possible for people to discuss common issues on a deeper level through the lyrics of a song. As time goes on, the level of risk taken in songs and the line of what is and isn’t acceptable to discuss has grown. Many songs focusing on drug use have been seen as controversial. However these types of songs allow us to see into the artist’s world and in some ways get a deeper view of what drug use means to a musician. Both “Get High” by Brandy Clark and “Cocaine” by J.J. Cale, serve as good examples of how a musician can express the importance of drugs through their lyrics.

This song was started by having all the instruments introduced. Once the performers were introducing the instruments I was able to picture that this song would be very unique and something I had not heard before. Once the list of instruments was finished the song started with the tin cans. The tin cans were laid out in sets with three people playing them. The song starts with the same rhythm and tempo which is moderato. Then it changes to andante. Then one person would stop and the three players would alternate between plays. One performer covers his tin cans with a black cloth and the sound changes. The dynamics are piano and the tempo is adagio. While this is going on there are random beats of the bass drum. Once again there is a major change

Throughout the years, researchers continue to make several efforts to discover the cultural change that could have possibly caused the negative shift in the representation of women in music. Adams and Fuller’s (2006) study looks to find probable causes by focusing on the misogynistic ideologies generated throughout history among the African American population. They find that the degrading lyrics not only negatively categorize and oppress women, but are "becoming a means for defining gender relations among the youth" (Adams & Fuller, 2006, p. 952; Weitzer & Kubrin, 2009, p. 5). Over the years, popular male lyricists assert their masculinity by degrading their female counterparts which has, in turn, been accepted by a wide variety of consumers.

Sexual aggression, 95% of rappers have use sexual aggression in there song and videos. Male or female participants listened to misogynous or neutral song lyrics and measured actual aggressive behavior. Male participants who were exposed to misogynous song lyrics administered hotter sauce to a female than to a male confederate. This issue is not new, these days, the kind of words spoken, or should we say, sung in many of the popular songs have some type of sexual violence in them. How many song lyrics tolerate and even encourage teens and young people to engage in sexual activities? I will examine if the same lyrics are responsible for making teens and the youth become sexually aggressive towards other people.

2013 has been a good year. We've had a royal birth, a celebration marking 50 years of Doctor Who and Andy Murray won Wimbledon making him the first British male to do so in *77 years. Unfortunately this year also saw the release of what is quite possibly the worst song ever made: Blurred Lines. It is a monstrosity created by Robin Thicke. The song has attracted much attention due it its misogynistic video and offensive lyrics. That attention has caused both positive and negative reactions. Blurred Lines has become the *most downloaded song of 2013 but it has also been banned in several places including at least *9 universities in the UK alone. My question is, why hasn't it been banned all together?

The pop rock band Maroon 5’s new hit single Animals from their fifth studio album V is their 10th song to reach the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. At first glance it appears to be just another unoriginal pop rock song; melodic, repetitive. But as we look at the press that surrounds both the song and its music video we find a controversy surrounding sexual violence and objectification. There can be no question of a need of such discussion in regards to the themes that Animals the music video brings to light. That being said, the question in this discussion should not be whether it promotes these topics but rather if it does a good enough job of making the audience critically aware that these problems exist. This will be done by looking at the video and its song from a radical Feminist perspective. Bell Hooks defines Feminism as, “ a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression." And the first step of ending these things is showing how they are a part of our culture which this video does brillintly.