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Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines music video is out of control. The way it objectifies women is disgraceful and disturbing at the at the least. If you pick the right version (which is what the following pictures are form) you will see 3 pictures I selected from the music video. I tried to leave out any nudity, but it was very hard. All of the of the women have on no tops and throughout the video you can see multiple pairs of breasts being shown and you can see their butts showed off quite often. That is just the visuals. if you listen to it at all the line from the chorus states many terrible things about having sex and raping these women that you see in the music video.
The very beginning of this horrid music video opens up with this shot after the men are getting out of the bed fully clothed and the women have next to nothing on. You can clearly see the woman is topless, her nipples are exposed and if you don’t look hard enough like I did the first time you would think that she had no underwear on but in fact she just has on a "nude" colored thong on. This can be traced back to Kilbourne's points on pornographic images and how they are in one way or another dehumanizing that woman by making her stand there topless. As the music video goes on Robin will rub against her, sniff her hair. or even go as far as to make them dance for him.
Towards the end of this music video you see this shot right here with one of the men pulling on the same woman's hair. Throughout the music video I believe he pulls on 3 different women's hair and they proceed to react turned on sexually to it as you can see in this photo. The problem here is not only the pulling of the hair which represents complete male dominance throughout the music video, it also represents that if the woman would mess up or do something the male didn’t like they would give them a "tug of correction" and they just have to take it. Which is also what Kilbourne talks about in her articles, this point is dehumanization, by treating her like a pet and just to be toyed around with for the man's pleasure and not thinking about what she wants. This also displays violence against women, granted we dont know how hard the man is pulling but it is implied pretty hard because of the face she is making.
By far the most sickening shot in this whole video is this shot right here. When I saw it, I knew I had to put it in. As you are watching it you are absolute mesmerized by the fact that women are topless and next to naked in this video. But upon closer inspection this shot right here is the worst by far. the line which is being sung when this comes up is "I’ll treat you like a dog". The dog for this shot is fitting but the way I see it, they are not having the dog in there because of the corresponding song lyric. As you can see all of the women are clothed making this a story. Robin Thicke, Ferrell Williams and T.I. are using the dog as a snare. Almost what a pedophile would do with candy to get a kid into his van. They are using this dog as a trojan horse so they can verbally and physically abuse these women using sex or other methods such as hair pulling. This by far is the worst example of Kilbourne's violence towards women argument because it is the first stage of rape. Rape as you know is forced sex upon an individual who doesnt want that. Making this my strongest argument towards violence towards women.
The Audio in this music video just like the visuals is one to really investigate and dig deeper into, but the more you dig deeper the more you wish you hadn’t. The beat and tune of this is very catchy and I vividly remember listening to this music in the car with my mom and singing along with it because it was so catchy, and that is the scary part. just like the dog it is a trojan horse to get a parasite of sexually immorality in someone's mind. The following two quotes are lyrics from the music video.
"just let
me liberate you, you don’t need no papers, that man is not your maker, and
that's why I’m gon' take a good girl." this line is inducing these women
to have sex with them and making sure that they know they have no choice but to
do what the male says in this scenario.
"I hate these blurred lines, I know you want it(x4),
But you're a good girl. The way you grab me, Must wanna get nasty. Go ahead, get at me."
Blurred lines was always a weird title to me as a kid but investigating it now i can see that the lines he is talking about are the "Censored" lines and he wants to get rid of them because he is lusting over multiple women's bodies the whole music video. The line "must want to get nasty" is implying that when the woman fights back "the way you grab me" or touches the male in the scenario it turns him on so he will put himself onto her so that she will be forced to have sex with him whether she likes it or not, so in modern day terms "rape".
Kilboure's Article that we read mainly focuses on media and marketing exploitation of women and their bodies. She goes into detail about how it is dangerous for women to live in today society because of how rape is promoted and normalized in the multi-media outlets such as social media, movies, and music. She also states that women are viewed as pornograpgy objects and things to play around with and not respect, get what we want and just move on, the act of dehumanization. Not seeing the value in that other person because they are just treated like an object and not treated like the human being that they are. This is what Kilbourne calls dehumanization. Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines music video which contains various naked women in difference stances doing different actions. It has a story to go along with it and in the music video you see a handsome white male with a dog, he lures in multiple women to do whatever he wants them to do such as get naked for him, dance for him and, let them grind up on them. If the women refuses, he will "pull on her hair" or do something that she won’t like, and she will have to take it. In the music video you see this multiple time. Kilbourne is right about the media objectifying women in a modern-day society like ours and it is very sickening to me and I’m sure every woman can agree. The normalization for rape culture has to stop.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwT6DZCQi9k
Kilbourne's "Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt" (pgs 488-515)
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