I
consider myself a feminist,
but I absolutely
love
the song "Blurred Lines." This
is
why.
Some
broad strokes of
my personal brand of feminism:
I want to be paid equal money for equal
work, and I want to be able to stay home and raise children without
judgment if my partner and I decide that's
what we want to do.
I love the modern independence of owning a car and driving myself
places unescorted, but I also thrill inside
every time
my boyfriend opens the car door for me. I'm pretty sure he doesn't
open this door because he feels my weak feminine muscles are unsuited
to the task of prying the
masculine
steel
cover away from my
my designated spot in the front seat. I'm pretty sure it's a gesture
to make me feel cherished and special. If we lived in a time when he
was expected to open the door for me, his
chivalry would
have
communicated,
"I am fulfilling my obligation of the social contract to be the
workhorse in this relationship and protect you from unnecessary and
uncustomary strain." But that's thankfully no longer our
contract. Under
the modern, chivalry-optional
contract,
opening
the door is a way to say “I don't have to do this, but I want to
make an extra effort to show
my appreciation and admiration of
you.”
In
terms of male “dominance” behaviors like door opening and meal
buying, the
fact
that the behavior
was once a symptom of a patriarchal institution doesn't disqualify it
from being a legitimate, consensual
choice
any more than owning
an analog watch disqualifies
someone from owning a computer. Intentional
anachronistic throwbacks don't necessarily mean that the weight of
female
oppression is
implicit in them. When
we choose to engage in these
sort of “unfeminist”
behaviors, we're
not caving to shadows of the insidious patriarchy, rather, we're
making informed choices
and exercising our power of agency.
So how does this
feminist backdrop make date rape songs ok? It doesn't. But my
interpretation of this song is that it celebrates playful
seduction that is caring, cooperative, and most importantly,
consensual.
I
can't deny that
a
rapey interpretation of “Blurred
Lines” is
entirely plausible. It features the dialog of a man trying to convince a woman to be
more intimate than she is giving clear verbal
cues
about wanting to be. Reading his pleas as coercive certainly damns it to feminist hell, and rightly so. No one should be pressured into
sexual activity, period. By this interpretation,
the song is a pretty
evil
horseman
of the women's rights apocalypse,
end of story. But I have a hard time believing that that's the
song's
intent.
If this is the
real
interpretation, then the
bubble gum pop song Blurred
Lines
is essentially a college cheer, "Give me an R! Give me an A!
Give me a P! And an E!" Clap, clap, clap! Hip, hip, hooray!
Something so blatantly pro-pervy sex is an envelope-pusher far beyond
the ambitions of Robin Thicke. This isn't gritty Eminem, exposing the
hard knock life that kindled
murderous
feelings
toward
his mother, or dirty, raw Rihanna shocking us with her desire to get
knocked around, or the Rolling Stones making
us cringe at
the
pleasures of a
plantation
master's
rape
of
slaves.
Blurred
Lines
is a cotton candy confection, performed
by a goofy doofus,
not
a Don
Draper. I
personally have a hard time just taking Robin Thicke and Pharell
seriously enough to credit them with creating something intentionally
so controversial.
When
I first heard the song on
the radio,
minding
my own business in the car, not having heard anything about the
controversy, I
got my groove on thinking the
"blurred lines" were the fun lines between "good girl"
and "bad girl," essentially the Hot Librarian trope
(a
personal favorite. See the author's glasses). For
those of you from a foreign planet, the allure
of the Hot Librarian
is that the woman has a professional, competent, intelligent, and
composed demeanor that the public sees, her
asexual
"good" side, and
a fierce, sexual, animal "bad" side.
The
real
patriarchal
stink that,
bafflingly, no one seems to be outraged over, is
that
the song
assumes women have
to
be asexual to be "good." Ironically
this assumption seems
fundamental to the whole
misogyny
interpretation of
the song.
When he sings “I know you want it, but you're a good girl,”
people are up in arms that
he
arrogantly
assumes
she is hiding sexual desire from him, but not at all upset that
“wanting it” and being a good girl are
presented
as
contradictory.
The
rapey interpretation seems to have no problem concluding that if
she's a good girl, then she doesn't want it, and therefore the singer
must be coercing her.
Now
here's where I'm pretty sure I'm taking the safety off a loaded gun
and stuffing it into my pants: Imagine that maybe the object of
affection actually does want sex with the singer in this song. Just
for argument's sake, imagine that she's enjoying the benefit of
having
a powerful, professional female persona and playing
with when to reveal her passionate
animal lover persona. Imagine one
step further that
she's familiar with the singer and his feelings for her, and
they have spent time together learning each other's nonverbal sexual
cues.
This context
actually makes the opening lines an expression of concern for her
feelings before it even
attempts the seduction.
“If
you can't hear what I'm trying to say/If you can't read from the same
page/Maybe I'm going deaf/Maybe I'm going blind/Maybe I'm out of my
mind”
In
these opening lines, he's trying to make sure that they are on the
“same page” and offering his own fallibility as reason that they
might not be, “ I want to communicate clearly with you, and if
we're not doing that, it might be my fault.” It's almost a
disclaimer of sorts, “This coming business is real, and I want to
make sure that we aren't miscommunicating.” Maybe my hopeful
naivite just reads wildly optimistic, but I see it as an invitation
to the woman to call him on shenanigans and join him as a partner,
not a victim. He doesn't want to coerce her, he wants to be on the
same page. He wants the playful flirting to be mutually understood
and consented to.
The
next lines:
“Now
he was close/Tried to domesticate you/but you're an animal/baby it's
in your nature/Just let me liberate you/You don't need no papers/That
man is not your maker”
I'm
assuming he is talking about the woman's previous lover/dance
partner/boyfriend, one who didn't understand and appreciate her dual
nature. It's a far cry from lyrical genius, but I still don't think
it's coercion. The singer is trying to express an appreciation of the
whole woman, not just the “tame,” “good” side. Even with this
less-than-nuanced appeal to her to choose him, it's still putting the
power in her hands. “Let me,” he asks and reminds her of her own
power. He's not telling her how powerful and wild she is only take
her agency away. He's offering up his admiration of her power and
asking if he can assist her in her efforts to embrace it. And yes,
I'm certain he's hoping to enjoy the results of her empowerment
himself, but I think he enjoys the fact that it's the woman with
power making the choice to involve him in using it.
The
next verse:
“And
that's why I'mma take a good girl/I know you want it (x3)/You're a
good girl/Can't let it get past me/you're far from plastic/Talk about
getting blasted/I hate these blurred lines/I know you want it
(x3)/But you're a good girl/The way you grab me/must want to get
nasty/Go ahead, get at me.”
He's
going to take (as in partner with, not rape) a good girl, because he
wants the complex woman with the dual nature. Could “I know you
want it” be his satisfied observation of the sexually confident
woman he admires, rather than an attempt at brainwashing her? The
next line is another appreciative nod of this woman's true nature,
“you're far from plastic” (again, not poetry). He
likes his real woman in a world where perfect, plastic Barbie ones
are easy to come by.
I
can see how “Talk about getting blasted” followed by “I hate
these blurred lines” could scream drunkenness and make
the blurred lines the
inability to tell if the woman is interested or not. This is the most
compelling couplet for the rapey interpretation. But
I still think the rest of the song makes more sense if we pair “talk
about getting blasted” with the previous lines as part of the
effect she has on him. He's drunk on her raw sexual power of
attraction. When he tells her “The way you grab me, must want to
get nasty” he's showcasing her agency and offering her a chance to embrace the “nasty” or
the not-good-girl side. He is interpreting her sexual advances toward
him (she did the grabbing), and inviting her to take action, but he never once suggests doing anything to her. Over
and over in this song, he acknowledges that the woman is the one with
the sexual power and he invites her to embrace it.
The
next lines offer a stronger case for the “they knew each other
already” argument:
“What
do they make dreams for/When
you got them jeans on?/What do we need steam for/You
the hottest bitch in this place/I
feel so lucky/You want to hug me/What rhymes with hug me?”
If
this woman was someone he had just met and was trying to seduce for
the first time, I can't imagine anyone being an idiot enough to use
the term “bitch” with expectations of success. “Bitch” can be
an empowering term if you use it about yourself or are invited to use
it by someone else. We have all seen pop culture iterations of the
following:
There's a pretty famous song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ivt_N2Zcts
I
once had a friend who took great pride in being her husband's “best
bitch.” Bitch in these contexts refers to a bold, powerful woman
who knows what she wants and how to get it and won't take crap from
anyone. While it can mean these empowering things, that's still a
minority usage and I can't imagine anyone being an idiot enough to
think someone they just met would find it complimentary. The
relationship in this song has to be about people who are already
intimately familiar with each other to use ironic terms of
endearment.
He
alludes to previous romantic interaction, “I feel so lucky you want
to hug me,” which I think is much more likely a cute understatement
about an established romantic partner than a manipulated a hug from of
a relative stranger. As for “What rhymes with hug me?” I have
nothing. I can only assume this line is just ... dumb.
As
I've said before, the song is not a work of genius. But I don't think
it's a work of misogyny either. I think its implications were not
well thought before it was released, and it certainly could have used
some more work on the branding strategy. But I think reading this
song as a rape anthem actually removes the woman's agency and assumes
a male-dominant sexual arena in which women are not supposed to want
sex. It puts all of the power in men's hands, assuming that they are
the only ones with agency, and that the females are just reacting.
And yes, that's kind of the idea of rape, that it completely removes
a woman's agency. But I like the reading of this that has her fully
engaging in playful push-me-pull-you courtship. She has her “good”
side and her “bad” side and leverages them as she likes in the
game of seduction. Her dual nature is something to be appreciated
The
big question is: where lies the burden of proof? Are we allowed
interpret this song in what I feel is the feminist way in which this
woman has agency and is in full control of this seduction, or does
the existence of rape culture mean that by default we should
interpret this song as coercive to eliminate the possibility of
inadvertent approval of rape tactics? If my interpretation is
correct, does it need proof? How would the woman's consent to this
seduction be communicated? A surgeon general's warning at the
beginning of the video? “The Surgeon General warns that the male
and female in this song are engaged in a loving and committed
relationship with a known history of nonverbal sexual consent.”
If
the woman was playing a cat-and-mouse game and went so far as to
actually refuse or even imply that she was not interested (as she
does in “Baby It's Cold Outside,” which will have to be another
essay), what then? Thankfully for this essay, this song doesn't
actually have any evidence that the woman is disinterested—our only
hint is that the singer is telling her “I know you want it,”
which doesn't necessarily have to be a douchey frat boy line. But
what if she actually did refuse and was playing? What would be an
appropriate platform to honor this type of play in pop culture? Are
we not allowed to have it until the patriarchy falls?
These
questions I don't have the answers to. But I like being a Hot
Librarian (or, more accurately, Hot Flight Attendant), I like being
seduced and seducing, and I don't think I can wait for the end of the
patriarchy to dance to this song.