Sunday 16 June 2013

Blurred lines


I have a song completely stuck in my head.  I wake up humming it.  Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke (who?) & Pharrell Williams. 
 
I love love LOVE the song but hate hate HATE the video.  Rated or Unrated versions feature the very handsome Misters Thicke & Williams suited & booted and looking very hot dancing with 3 very beautiful & young models who are scantily clad in the rated version or topless in the unrated one.

I saw an interview with Robin Thicke in which he said the fact that he, Pharrell & T.I. (the guy rapping) are all married make it perfectly OK.  He thinks that having 3 middle aged men (can you believe that Pharrell Williams was born in 1973?) with near naked young girls is funny like Benny Hill.  I think the mistake that Mr Thicke is making is that Benny Hill was from the 70s where casual sexism was the norm. And lets not forget Benny Hill was not really very funny.





So it's meant to be funny or tongue in cheek.  I read that they wanted to make it as outrageous as possible, Mr Thicke has said about it "It is mostly throwaway fun, but naturally Pharrell and I - being in love with our wives, having kids and loving our mothers - we have a lot of respect for women.". 

I can't say that really comes across Robin with the naked dancing girls and the helium balloons spelling out 'ROBIN THICKE HAS A BIG DICK'   

The only really blurred line here being whether this is funny or grossly sexist

 
To me it smacks of a cynical marketing ploy.  How many hits has it received?  And the "unrated" version has been "banned" from YouTube - however is extremely easy to find as if you find the video on YouTube there is a link attached to take you to Vevo to view it.  Along with the hash tags plastered across it all (I haven't searched for it on twitter yet but as sure it's at saturation point.  

Robin Thicke has said that his wife OK'd him doing the naked video & even came up with some of the ideas for it, and that having half-naked women pouring themselves over him is in no way sexist and he jokes that “If that’s sexism then so is everything inside the Louvre.” 

Hmmmn.  I'm not entirely sure that, that argument washes.  He can't possibly be suggesting (even in jest) that this pop promo is art can he?

I really am not a prude but come on it's 2013.

Like I say I love the song, it's fun, it's catchy, it is a real earworm.  I would rather have just looked at Robin & Pharrell for the duration of the song.  Or would that be objectifying them?






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