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I am so desensitised to the objectification of women that the first time I saw the video for Robin Thicke's song 'Blurred Lines', my only reaction was 'this looks like a hipster's Instagram album'. That version is bad enough, but there's an uncut version of the clip in which the female dancers are almost completely naked. And I know, the whole thing is clearly mainly a publicity stunt, because of course everyone will hear about it, get outraged and then go and have a look. And of course, 'music video clip objectifies women' is pretty much news at eleven these days. It's not so much that Thicke's video is doing anything newly horrible, but rather that it's one of the worst examples of undressed women-as-wallpaper that I've ever seen. It's bad enough to have half-naked women dancing around in a video clip, but in this one, they're being moved around (or rather dragged around by the hair) and posed like furniture. The point at which Thicke blows smoke into the face and mouth of one of the dancers makes my flesh crawl.
So then boylesque troupe Mod Carousel did a parody version, featuring the vocals of Caela Bailey, Sydney Deveraux and Dalisha Phillips.
The parody clip essentially mimics the original frame for frame, with some changes in props. Apart from switching the genders of the dancers, singers and rapper, there are no differences. It's a pretty powerful statement. But what interests me the most is the reaction currently playing out in the comments.
Now, Youtube comments are pretty much the dregs of the internet, and these are as awful as you'd imagine. What I'm seeing is a lot of clueless men Just Not Getting It. As Mod Carousel note in the information for the clip,
It's our opinion that most attempts to show female objectification in the media by swapping the genders serve more to ridicule the male body than to highlight the extent to which women get objectified and do everyone a disservice. We made this video specifically to show a spectrum of sexuality as well as present both women and men in a positive light, one where objectifying men is more than alright and where women can be strong and sexy without negative repercussions.
What we get in the comments is this:
If they had Calvin Klein models with just a thong on or something like that AND ATTRACTIVE Female artists then you would succeed. I'm not gay but I can say that Robin Thicke, Pharrell, & T.I. are all good looking dudes & they can sing/rap but..to be blunt they're [the female singers and rapper] not really at all attractive to the common male. - gman4eva9.
However if they truly were trying to objectify the men in the same way the women were being objectified, I think they should have done it in a more masculine way rather than the feminine portrayal of these guys. In my opinion, using Chippendale's or Magic Mike type of dancers would have demonstrated the objectification more effectively. - Kevin Wright.
A swing and a miss. Might have worked if they hadn't dolled up the men. It doesn't create an equal but opposite contrast. Should have had men portrayed as how women idealize them. - dwcupcakes.
why do the guys have to act gay....the girls in robin thicke's video weren't acting like lesbians....plus why are the girls dressed like guys.... - DisneyStarsTube.
I could go on. Of course, there are plenty of people articulately shouting down these idiots, who have spectacularly missed the point. It's not about whether heterosexual women find the dancers in the parody version hot (and I love how all these men in the Youtube comments are falling over themselves to tell me what I - and all women who like men ever - find attractive). It's about the fact that flipping the genders and posing men like scantily-dressed pieces of furniture provokes a very different reaction to videos which pose women like scantily-dressed pieces of furniture.
It's about the fact that when women behave towards men like men behave towards women, it's considered so unnatural that men think they are watching something designed for the gay male gaze.* It's about the fact that when the objectified become the subject in a faithful, image-by-image parody, male viewers' first response is to criticise the appearances of the female subjects for not being sexually appealing enough.
_____________________
*Which reminds me, yet again, of a post by Kate Elliott in which she refers to an email by a guy who berated her for 'pushing a homosexual agenda'. Eventually, she worked out that what he meant was that her books, written mainly from the point of view of heterosexual women, describe men in a sexual manner through the eyes of these women. Being made to view male characters in this way made the reader feel as if he were reading from the perspective of a gay man.
So then boylesque troupe Mod Carousel did a parody version, featuring the vocals of Caela Bailey, Sydney Deveraux and Dalisha Phillips.
The parody clip essentially mimics the original frame for frame, with some changes in props. Apart from switching the genders of the dancers, singers and rapper, there are no differences. It's a pretty powerful statement. But what interests me the most is the reaction currently playing out in the comments.
Now, Youtube comments are pretty much the dregs of the internet, and these are as awful as you'd imagine. What I'm seeing is a lot of clueless men Just Not Getting It. As Mod Carousel note in the information for the clip,
It's our opinion that most attempts to show female objectification in the media by swapping the genders serve more to ridicule the male body than to highlight the extent to which women get objectified and do everyone a disservice. We made this video specifically to show a spectrum of sexuality as well as present both women and men in a positive light, one where objectifying men is more than alright and where women can be strong and sexy without negative repercussions.
What we get in the comments is this:
If they had Calvin Klein models with just a thong on or something like that AND ATTRACTIVE Female artists then you would succeed. I'm not gay but I can say that Robin Thicke, Pharrell, & T.I. are all good looking dudes & they can sing/rap but..to be blunt they're [the female singers and rapper] not really at all attractive to the common male. - gman4eva9.
However if they truly were trying to objectify the men in the same way the women were being objectified, I think they should have done it in a more masculine way rather than the feminine portrayal of these guys. In my opinion, using Chippendale's or Magic Mike type of dancers would have demonstrated the objectification more effectively. - Kevin Wright.
A swing and a miss. Might have worked if they hadn't dolled up the men. It doesn't create an equal but opposite contrast. Should have had men portrayed as how women idealize them. - dwcupcakes.
why do the guys have to act gay....the girls in robin thicke's video weren't acting like lesbians....plus why are the girls dressed like guys.... - DisneyStarsTube.
I could go on. Of course, there are plenty of people articulately shouting down these idiots, who have spectacularly missed the point. It's not about whether heterosexual women find the dancers in the parody version hot (and I love how all these men in the Youtube comments are falling over themselves to tell me what I - and all women who like men ever - find attractive). It's about the fact that flipping the genders and posing men like scantily-dressed pieces of furniture provokes a very different reaction to videos which pose women like scantily-dressed pieces of furniture.
It's about the fact that when women behave towards men like men behave towards women, it's considered so unnatural that men think they are watching something designed for the gay male gaze.* It's about the fact that when the objectified become the subject in a faithful, image-by-image parody, male viewers' first response is to criticise the appearances of the female subjects for not being sexually appealing enough.
_____________________
*Which reminds me, yet again, of a post by Kate Elliott in which she refers to an email by a guy who berated her for 'pushing a homosexual agenda'. Eventually, she worked out that what he meant was that her books, written mainly from the point of view of heterosexual women, describe men in a sexual manner through the eyes of these women. Being made to view male characters in this way made the reader feel as if he were reading from the perspective of a gay man.
