The song “Blurred Lines,” by Robin Thicke featuring T.I. and Pharrell Williams, which has been at the top of the American charts for weeks, is a perfect example of how American popular culture promotes rape and sexual violence against women. The song has grown famous for its extremely offensive lyrics and a music video so sexually explicit YouTube has blocked it. Aside from this, the song features lines that objectify and degrade women, and suggest that women’s voices simply don’t matter.
The song talks about one particular woman as if she is purely a sexual object who was only put on this earth to look hot, dance around and have sex with men.
Take the most famous line in the song, “I know you want it,” for example. The lyrics are implying very clearly that even when a woman says “no,” it really can mean “yes,” so you don’t actually have to listen to her when she says “no.”
This frame of mind that you can take a woman’s “no” as insignificant is not just wrong but also against the law. Rape is a simple concept. It is sex without consent. Sorry boys, but in a court of law, the excuse, “She said no, but I know she wanted it,” just isn’t going to go over very well with the jury.
Aside from the degrading lyrics, the music video also features naked women prancing around the three men, Thicke, T.I. and Williams, who are of course, completely clothed. The music video portrays the women as sexual objects that belong to the men, and their only purpose is to please them.
Portraying women as sexual objects suggests to women that their voices don’t matter and their only worth in society is in their attractiveness and sex appeal. It also teaches men that they can treat women however they want, thus promoting and condoning rape and sexual violence against women.
Robin Thicke even admits in a GQ interview they are degrading the women in the music video, but that it’s okay because he really does respect women. “People say, ‘Hey, do you think this is degrading to women?’ I’m like, ‘Of course it is. What a pleasure it is to degrade a woman. I’ve never gotten to do that before. I’ve always respected women,” Thicke said.
Thicke also said in the interview that because the three of them (him, T.I. and Williams) are married with children, the song’s message is not misogynistic at all, and they are “the perfect guys to make fun of this.” So apparently disrespecting women is totally justified if you’re married with children.
Degrading women through music and media outlets, even if it is “just for fun,” is extremely dangerous. The population gets used to the idea that women are worthless and their voices don’t count, and rape is no longer taken seriously. Suddenly there are “blurred lines” in rape, and it is a woman’s fault if she is raped. It is because she dressed a certain way or seduced the guy or acted like she wanted it. In reality though, none of these excuses for rape are ever valid. Rape is something that needs to be taken seriously, because it is a serious problem, and “making fun” of it is something that will never be OK. Rape is one of those lines you don’t cross or even make blurry.
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