16 May 2013
[Content warning: sexual aggression; sexual assault.]
Hashtags! That was my immediate reaction while I first encountered ‘Blurred Lines’. It was a Sunday morning, I had a music TV channel on while eating breakfast and reading the papers, and the video started. Those full-screen hashtags of artist and track title had caught my eye, and the bubbly rhythm my ear. By the end of the video, my reaction was a whole lot different.
Much as with two other number one singles, T.A.T.u.’s ‘All The Things She Said’ and Eric Prydz’s ‘Call On Me’ a decade before, I don’t think we can isolate ‘Blurred Lines’ the track from its now-infamous video. Those two earlier hits, by unknown artists, effectively got to number one by surfing the effluent wave of titillation, bantz and crassness raised by their videos. Would ‘Blurred Lines’ fronted by the unknown-outside-North-America Robin Thicke have been such a worldwide chart-topping smash without the controversy generated by its video?
Another way of approaching it is, since the video is essentially Thicke, Pharrell and T.I. merrily doing the actions of the sexist, misogynistic, predatory lyrics (and Emily Ratajkowski has said she was groped by Thicke while she was partially nude on set) would ‘Blurred Lines’ the track have generated such controversy without the video? Huge swathes of ’00s chart-topping singles and pop cultural products demonstrated the same attitudes and seemingly got off scot-free, so you’d have to wonder if not. Perhaps that cheap, exploitative, attention-baiting video ultimately backfired by flushing ‘Blurred Lines’ and its rotten worldview out into the open. However, that worldview hasn’t gone away and is arguably more virulent and hateful today, even while out in the open.
The perpetrators of ‘Blurred Lines’ being done for copyright infringement feels a bit like Al Capone getting nabbed for tax evasion. True, some karma was served. Thicke got caught in behaviour you’d expect from the singer of ‘Blurred Lines’, was dumped by his famous wife, and his career evaporated; his next album would be one of the all-time calamitous flops. Pharrell, though, goes on to make an even bigger smash hit the following year, albeit with a notable pivot to being family-friendly, and has since voiced some regret about writing those lyrics. (Nobody really cared about small-fry T.I. then or now.) Ironically, that multi-million-dollar copyright judgement against Thicke and Pharrell was pretty controversial itself and arguably harsh, effectively setting the threshold of music copyright as “vibes”. The two men’s squirming discomfort was small consolation, of course, to the millions of women who endure the harsh realities of ‘Blurred Lines’ and its own vibes.
We Consent is a Government-supported national programme in Ireland that provides information, including support, to highlight and combat the sort of toxic male attitudes and behaviours showcased in ‘Blurred Lines’. You can find out more at we-consent.ie or on social media via the hashtag #WeConsent
