Selfie By The Chainsmokers: Song Analysis

Director Sut Jhally, in his documentary film, “Dreamworlds 3: Desire, sex, and power in music videos”, analyzes the issue of how women are portrayed in the music world. Jhally, in his film argues how music and media has become a proud industry when it comes to advertising women, all for the benefit of popularity and record sales. Jhally believes these videos both inform and misinform our culture about our dominant attitudes regarding femininity masculinity, sexuality and race. He uses an empathetic tone in order to appeal to pathos, the feelings and experiences in women when he presents video clips that are somewhat offensive to watch as proof that women have become a common necessity shown in music videos. Often presented as being sexually aggressive and submissive, being objectified by men. He also intentionally wants to try to stir up emotions as he introduces song lyrics of women being called inappropriate names and images of women being fondled by men throughout the film. Sometimes, aggressively without consent.

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.

For example, Smash Mouth writes,”i ain’t the sharpest tool in shed/ She was looking kind was looking kind of dumb with her finger in her thumb.”(Smash Mouth) This lyric describes the singer’s personality. He might not be the smartest person and people might judge him, but The singer is smart enough to make his own decisions. This is a great example of a hypole. Another examples of literary devices in the song is,”Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running.”(Smash Mouth) This lyric is an example of personification. It’s personification because it’s giving human traits to the rules. The lyric give detailed information about the singer listening to the rules, but people make fun of him for listening to every rule. That will not stop him for doing his best.

At the beginning the singers are in white dresses and they have black paint being splattered on them. The white dress is supposed to be a significance of their pureness and how they were just “a little country girl band before”, then the black paint is supposed to be a reference to the hate and how they are “not so perfect” anymore. In the mid video, the lead singer (the one who had made the statement) stands up because she is tired of it. As the other sisters try pulling her down meaning “don’t say anything”. They are being put through hell by people and having their reputation completely ruined.

The song expresses how people are not living up to society's values and norms. It suggest that the socialization is at fault and that they contribute to improvement of self being. The song implies the way society goes against values and norms by one of the very first lyrics in the song. The lyric goes, “What’s wrong with the world, mama, People livin’ like they ain’t got no mamas…” (lines 1-2). This makes one aware of the lack of values in one's family. Values is the belief or an idea that a person or group has to determine is correct or not. Another verse of how the band shows one disobedience of the values and norms comes toward the middle of the song. “People killin', people dyin’, Children hurt and you hear them cryin, Can you practice what you preach, And would you turn the other cheek…” (lines 50-53). These verses show of society has failed to act stable and logical way that society once viewed as correct living. These actions show that citizens have not lived up to the expectations of society. Social norms are likes the laws of society. Laws are things that are illegal behaviour and norms are like behaving in a way society wouldn’t like. For example being in gangs, like the bloods, or the crips, or a big group that goes against society's norms like racial groups. An example of a racial group would be the KKK.

Or perhaps the real artist, Taylor Swift’s purpose is to show the audience how ridiculous is the media image that has been created on her. It is a warning for both boys and girls, primarily those who are hoping to attract love from boys that love is perpetuated by its tortuousness. It is painful if boys will lose interest, that is Swift’s warning. The song revolves around a message for girls: do not be a daydream dressed like a daydream; do not be a nightmare dressed like a nightmare; do not find out what kind of a girl he wants and be like that forever, do not be heaven, do not be nice, do not be magic, never be too plain or perfect and good. You can also add torture to love and bring darkness to light, it is all about the

This song displays the traditional messages sent by male artists. What about female artists? What do their songs portray? Andsager and Roe’s findings give a good description. According to them, there are two kinds of female artists. The strong, more established female artists portray women as “fully equal.” These women are in their thirties at least, they are more established, and they dress in casual suits. They sang romance, female emancipation, and heartbreak like the rest, but they did not compromise their image in their videos. They use Trisha Yearwood as an example in her song Everybody Knows. The other type, were women who “fell into the lowest level on the consciousness scale.” They used Deana Carter’s song We Danced Anyway as an example. In this song she rolled on the beach in a wet t-shirt. Another one is Faith Hill’s song Breathe. In this song, Hill is seen rolling around in her bed sheets with no clothes on.

This song implies that individual’s are violating the norms and values of society. They start the song with a verse that expresses

Yo, I stick out my tongue so everyone could see that logo.” Even as a kid you know what these logos mean to people and society, the impact it can have on communities, however, is not always there which is what the song gets to by saying, “Nike Air Flight, but that was so dope and then my friend Carlos' brother got murdered for his Fours*, whoa.” Consumerism and what corporations and media want you to believe about it is dangerous and that’s the point they finally make. Here, they are clearly laying out and protesting what they feel to be a problem across many communities and starting with young children and then continues into

This is an inspirational song for an average teenage girl, but as I pointed out there were some contradictions to the lyrics and the meaning. They may want to see themselves as beautiful in every way possible, but the world is a puzzle and there is a piece that is gone because of what has become socially acceptable.

I think the picture shows that in this day and age all we are concerned about is how we look, what pose we just did, what clothes we wear, and how we get judged by other people. We now live in a technology and social media driven world where people post pictures every few minutes of where they are, what there doing, what there wearing, what foods there eating, and every other thing imaginable in this world. There is an endless list of what people tweet, snap, and share that now a days that all we are doing. I think that sometimes social media make us self centered because all social media has become is us just talking about ourselves and our lives. Social media has also created people who are unaware of the actual world around them not the social media driven world online.

In musical superstar Taylor Swift’s music video for her song “Blank Space,” she is portraying herself as the high maintenance and dramatic girlfriend that the media believes she is. The speaker of this text is the media’s perception of Taylor Swift and her message is about the disconnect between who Swift really is and who the media sees her as. I believe Swift has two purposes for this music video. One is for her character in the music video to warn her audience about the type of love that boys want, and the other for real life Taylor herself to poke holes into the media’s concept of her love life. The video is filled with satire and paradoxes to convince us that our idea of Taylor Swift is not an accurate opinion of her.

As the power of a song resides completely in its lyrics, it is no longer surprising that music can be healing, inspiring, or even motivating. After introducing this insight to my life, it became very rare for me to listen to any Imagine Dragons’ song without it leaving an impact on my life and my perspectives. Imagine Dragons is a rock band whose music tends to address both personal and social issues. It’s Time, one of their biggest hits and most influential songs, was written by the band’s lead singer Dan Reynolds during a difficult time in his life. “ I was not very happy with who I was, I guess, and I wanted to make some changes” says the singer in an interview with Purevolume , in which he addresses It’s Time as a poem he wrote to express

First, the music video connects with teen girls by using lyrics that question staying in these harmful relationships. Shawn Mendes sings, “And you’re spending all your time in this wrong situation”, to motivate teen girls not to waste their time in those harmful relationships. These motivating lyrics help to encourage teenage girls to remove themselves from these relationships. When Shawn Mendes sings about how she should not waste her time in the wrong relationship, it encourages teen girls to get out of those bad relationships. Second, the music video relates to teen girls by using touching lyrics so that teenage girls realize the harmful relationships, they are in. Shawn Mendes sings the words, “But I can see it on your face when you say that he’s the one that you want”, as encouragement for teen girls to do what they want and leave a relationship if they feel unsafe or do not want to be part of it. Again, these compassionate lyrics inspire teen girls to disconnect harmful relationships, because that is what they should want. When Shawn Mendes sings about how it is obvious that the girl feels unhappy in the situation, it relates to other teen girl’s emotions and interests them to leave those situations. Through the use of concerning lyrics, of questioning and emotion the music video encourages teenage girls to leave their harmful relationships. Shawn Mendes’ “Treat

The song basically describes the “perfect date” and all these emotions that are “supposed” to be felt to indicate that you love the person. The artist adds classical elements and modern-day elements to her song making it more relatable to teens and also causing them to remember memories of when they were kids watching “Snow White” and wishing one day they will be that princess. The artist keeps repeating that this