Un-grained and Guilty (02 min read)

Via: Daily Prompt – Blur

Image: Pat David, Flickr

So what do you do when you like a song that goes against the grain with you?

It’s a hit song, Blurred Lines. It’s that music, both the composition and the arrangement; the exclamations inserted in the lyrics at the right moments; the rosy filter in the video.

Even the lyrics produces a chuckle, right down to “what rhymes with hug me?”

But it’s so WRONG! Just wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong!

The first time I saw it, I was shocked into stupefaction. When my senses returned, I turned it off immediately. Then I told my feminist sensibilities to get a grip and watch what the enemy produced.

How can something produced in such poor taste sound so good?! I got hooked even as I hated everything it portrayed. From the lyrics to the music video. Even the damn hashtags were a good catch – cheap – but effective nevertheless. A road accident so gruesome that you can’t tear your eyes away…

I wondered, how could those girls participate in such a travesty to womankind? I tried to reconcile myself with the idea that if I am a true feminist, I should applaud them in their boldness.

But I don’t think Thicke meant it as a feminist movement to depict how the women of today are sexually liberated. I think it was meant to do just what it does – titillate the testosterone. Because there are men who do believe they are placed on earth as god’s gifts to women. Urgh! This song would be right up their alley, now, wouldn’t it?

It has inspired some great parodies, however. I have come to enjoy many of them. My favorite is the feminist version, Defined Lines by the Auckland University law school. No, I don’t think it’s content is extreme at all. It’s on par with the original in its tonality.

Hey, hey, hey! At least, it gave us an opportunity to #CLEARTHEAIR …