The Teddy Bears- Terrifying…No one can argue with that.
Ah, the VMA performance by Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke and Juicy J.
So much strangeness for so many reasons.
Many articles have pointed out that the majority of the heat was placed on Miley. Now some are calling out Robin Thicke, but why has no one mentioned Juicy J?
Did we give up on him after he offered a $50K scholarship for the winner of a twerkin’ contest?
Is it expected of him since he is a rapper? Does he get a pass?
Is it less offensive when these kind of lyrics are coming from a rapper?
“All a nigga do is sip lean and fuck hoes
(Yes sir)
Smoking with a queen
(Bitch)
And she popped a bean
(Bitch)
Call my niggas over
(Bitch)
And let her fuck my team
(Ho)”
-Juicy J- Get Higher
So, basically this girl has smoked whatever and just took X and they are essentially running a train on her now that she is under the influence of multiple narcotics. I’m not sure what your definition of date rape is, but calling a bunch of friends over to have sex with a person after they have gotten high on a MDMA probably would fall into that category.
Most of you know, I am a bit of rap aficionado. (How embarrassing for them that my demographic is probably their main consumer.)
I don’t listen to Juicy J, but I have caught myself listening to other rappers I think are extremely talented who objectify women in their lyrics, and it has only been recently when I decided that I need to stop listening to the songs that are degrading. Do you know what I discovered? I basically have taken out 90% of my iTunes playlist. That was so sad (for me, for them, for the country…)..
Okay, I just had to say something about that….
Now on to Robin Thicke.
I originally saw Robin and I thought, “That guy looks like the dad on Growing Pains…”
Well, that is because his dad is Alan Thicke, and played Jason Seaver on the show. Many of you can remember Alan as the host of Pictionary, and he had a pretty David Hasselhoff-esque singing career.
That is the image I have in my head whenever Robin Thicke comes up in the news
Do you remember the public negative reaction when “Blurred Lines” came out because people said the lyrics were “rape-y”.
I don’t know, I’ve read the lyrics and I see how some could take it as that, but I thought the lyrics were kind of lame and they were just the same old crap getting played all over the radio.
BUT…here is where I think things went downhill….
A BBC Radio 1 reporter interviewed Robin Thicke about the potentially questionable lyrics and he stumbled around an answer that I think did a lot more harm than good.
When the reporter asked about the potentially offensive lyrics he said, “I can’t dignify that with a response.” And he really should have stopped there…
Then he added, “Only for extra religious people…” and continued on…
“That’s ridiculous … For me, it was about blurring the lines between men and women, and how much we’re the same. My wife is as strong as I am, if not smarter and stronger. And she’s an animal too, and she doesn’t need a man to define her. The song is really about how women are everything that a man is, and can do anything a man can do.”
He explained the unrated version of the “Blurred Lines” video: “I had mentioned to [the director] that I wanted to do a very funny and silly video. … And she said, ‘well, what if we have the girls take their clothes off?’ And I said, ‘make sure we shoot two versions, because I don’t want it to be sleazy.’ I’ve always been a gentleman, I’ve been in love with the same woman since I was a teenager. I don’t want to do anything that’s inappropriate.”
Eh….
If you have seen the unrated version of “Blurred Lines”, the men in the video are completely dressed (very well dressed I might add) and the women are topless and wearing nude thongs. Many have mentioned that the men being clothed evokes power and the women being nude shows vulnerability…oh and holding the lamb? I think most are reading it one way (even though they tried to claim the lamb was to touch on bestiality, which I’m not sure is a better or worse explanation)….No, I’m not sold on blurring lines… from what I saw, there were pretty clear gender borders in that video. For reference check out this parody that does the same song, but with a gender reversal:
Also, the video is pretty much the same except one video is clothed and in the other the women appear nude. So, when he speaks about “sleaziness” I’m assuming he is referring to a woman’s nude body? If this really was about women’s empowerment, the nude body, I would assume, would be considered empowering by the artist, not sleazy…no…
And I’m not sure how creating two videos makes someone any more of a gentleman. The other one that he deems “sleazy” is still being created.
In his defense, perhaps he wanted to create the second video in case the finished product of the first looked in poor taste and that was the sleaziness he was referring to, the potential for sleaziness if done incorrectly…Who knows…
Maybe he should have asked Juicy J for interview advice before taking any questions.
This would be the Juicy J strip club online game…
And to be extra fair, the “Blurred Lines” video and song alone without the commentary wouldn’t even make it into this thought-throw-up post. It was just that answer…I was not sold on it.
But you know what, look at how many parodies of this song have come out… was the popularity dumb luck or calculated? Look at that, it is getting late, fatigue is setting in and I’m turning into a conspiracy theorist!
Regardless, no matter how sexy they try to make “Blurred Lines” I cannot separate Alan and Robin Thicke in my head, so I will forever see this:
