Robin Thicke's number one hit 'Blurred Lines' appears to have succeeded in making its way into the iPod of every naive teenage girl, but student unions at universities around the country have decided it won't get in to their union spaces and events.
Mass uproar has been provoked, and every ‘animal’ who ‘wants it’ has jumped to Thicke's defence, stating ‘it's just a song’. Well yes, it is just a song, but if every song was as misogynistic and as sexist as 'Blurred Lines', wouldn't that just degrade feminism and take women's struggle for equality and enormous progress about 100 years back in time? Right back to when women didn't have a vote and when it was legal to rape within marriage.
So why is it acceptable for just one person to do it? Or any number of 'sexy' men to sing songs about rape. Yes, I know - where in the song does he sing explicitly about rape? But it's not the words, it's the pragmatic message that young men hear and take advice from. It’s the implication of ‘get a girl drunk and liberate her’ – a manual to owning and objectifying women in a catchy song. Don't get me wrong, it is catchy. But it's also a disgraceful and disrespectful moral to send out to the next generation, sung from the lips of your stereotypical sexist pig who thinks he can dominate any woman who walks past him in the street in a vaguely short skirt.
With the media, like US TV Show Glee, promoting ‘Blurred Lines’, they are broadcasting the point that all the good girls secretly want it, and they just can't contain themselves - even when they say no, they're apparently lying. Clearly. Thicke has defended his right to sing about such atrocities by claiming‘Blurred Lines’ is about his wife who he has been 'liberating' for twenty years now. Oh and of course, he told an interviewer that his song is a feminist movement within itself, as the lines "that man is not your maker" spring up every chorus or so. I'm sure every feminist would be grateful of Thicke’s support, had he not sung the lines, "I know you want it, the way you grab me - must wanna get nasty" alongside his ‘feminist subliminal message’.
It's extremely disappointing to know that the majority of this generation - future leaders, journalists, and teachers - all believe that this song is harmless. We might as well start teaching boys in primary school that a woman is his property and his accessory and when he feels the time is right he can 'liberate' her all he likes. What’s worse is that those who have defended Thicke appear to have forgotten every rape victim affected by this. In an article I read recently, I saw images of various rape victims holding up signs with the words their rapists had whispered to them before or during it. Such signs stated "I know you want it", "you're a good girl" and many more disturbing realities that these victimised women have to face every time they hear what so many people think is nothing more than a catchy song.
When are people going to wake up and realise that this is not just a song, this is actually a constant reminder that men have the upper hand in society? Every rape victim knows that- so why is it that every girl or boy who thinks ‘Blurred Lines’ is just a song, doesn't realise the true message this song carries? Not to mention the horrific reality it forces rape victims to hear, when this song is over played on the radio, on the TV and when young girls sing along to it at the bus stop? How is it no one else sees the outrageous, offensive, dominating truth?
Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’ is a song, but ultimately it is a statement of outdated misogynistic attitudes that we should not accept.