Adam Levine, Robin Thicke, and the Soundtrack to Rape Culture

I think it’s fair to say that the most common themes in music, throughout every decade of music existing as a pop culture commodity, have been lust and heartbreak. These are two of the most raw and relatable human emotions, leading to their frequent expression through artistic mediums. Often in music, these emotions are taken to their extremes when expressed, and become expressions of dark fantasies or drastic retaliations. The fact that these kinds of songs happen isn’t news and it’s not shocking that it still happens, however, there needs to be a distinction between art or expression and commercialized perpetuations of sexual violence.

The two most recent um, artists (?), that I want to compare are Maroon 5/Adam Levine + Friends, and Robin Thicke/Robin Thicket because that’s what Microsoft Word wants to call him and I like it better.  Both Levine and Thicket (I won’t stop, really It’s so much better) have a popular recent history of criticism for their videos.

Adam Levine sparked controversy first with Maroon 5’s video for “Misery” which features him being chased down and abused by his girlfriend (then real life girlfriend), and then again in the most recent video for “Animals,” in which he is a meat butcher who stalks a woman (his real life wife) while singing about preying on her and telling her not to deny the animal he brings out inside of her. These videos both are highly, highly, problematic. “Misery” completely trivializes domestic violence as some kind of entertaining game, while also using the woman as the aggressor to somehow make the act seem like a less significant offense, while hyping up the woman’s sexuality to give the whole thing more sex appeal. Then in “Animals,” the woman is sexualized again, compared to an animal and a piece of meat, however I would argue that now there’s an extra layer of complexity given that Levine, the male, is sexualized to an equal extent as the female. Also, while the woman is suggested to be desired like a piece of meat, Levine’s stalker character is the only character in the video to be visually equalized to meat, the main signifier being that he’s hanging off the meat hooks half nude and covered in blood in an attempt to make him indistinguishable from the dead cow carcasses. This all fits into a sick rape fantasy by Levine’s character, participating in a “rape culture” which works within patriarchy to foster acceptance sexual harassment and violence against women. But it has to be understood that this is a fictional narrative, with the purpose of telling a horror story. Maybe framing the story as a horror narrative, something is done in the psyche to inform the audience that yes, stalking and intent to rape is a horrific thing. That still doesn’t justify the lyrics and oversexualization, but it can’t be completely ignored. No part of rape culture can be justified, however I would argue that because Maroon 5’s “Animals” has levels of complexity, is attempting to tell a narrative story to the point that they hired the director of the latest Nightmare on Elm St. to direct the video, it has artistic merit. While it perpetuates rape culture, and that is problematic, it is not indulging in it the way that Mr. Thicket’s video is.

So now we get to Robin Thicket. This fucking guy. First he releases his most popular hit “Blurred Lines” which promoted rape, yes not just participated in rape culture but indeed PROMOTED RAPE AND SEXUAL HARRASMENT, using lyrics like “You Know You Want It,” and then the accompanying video was just him in a suit, in a room, surrounded by naked women acting like dogs. Or something. They’re doing some shit with their hands. Just… the video’s stupid and super misogynistic ok, just trust me here or watch it for yourself. Anyways… the genius Thicket follows up the controversy over his promotion of sexual assault by releasing a song/video called “Get Her Back” that publicly humiliates his ex-wife Paula Patton and makes private information between them public at her expense. To be clear, he is publicly sexually harassing and humiliating Paula Patton and attempting to frame himself as a heartbroken romantic, and a victim at the hands of Patton. This theme of harassment encompassed his entire tour, continuing the current phase of his career as one big public harassing.

The comparisons between “Animals” and “Blurred Lines” were quick to be made online, however I think we need to understand that these are two very different things. While there is an overarching problem of rape culture persisting in popular media, videos like “Animals” that attempt to express sexually aggressive but vague and generic sentiments, even when highly misogynistic, still are fictional narratives. “Animals” in particular is explicitly a horror narrative, meant to be horrific, which may be a positive aspect of it that stalking and raping are seen as horrific and creepy, and not happy and a man’s right to do. On the other side of this is the Uber-creep Thicket whose content is not “suggestive” at all, but is instead very directly and openly misogyny and harassment. He is directly harassing and violating a human being in the public eye. If you were pissed about Jennifer Lawrence’s nudes being leaked, then you should be equally pissed about the privacy violation that Paula Patton is being subjected to.

There is room to discuss how the work of both Levine and Thicket are problematic, but it needs to be understood that Adam Levine is creating a fucked up attempt at art, which is much more complex and worthy of discussion about how it can contribute to rape culture and what needs to change, while Thicke (real name now cause we’re gonna bring it on home) is openly taking pride in his participation, privilege, and perpetuation of rape culture. Thicke is not creating art, or any kind of narrative to interpret. He is making his personal life public at Paula Patton’s expense and attempting to commercialize her misery and his stalking/abuse.

There is no question as to the artistic merit of Thicke’s work, because there is no art. There is complete product: sexual assault being sold to the masses. Levine should be discussed in an attempt to change the system of production that continuously creates rape culture products. Thicke should be thrown out of the system entirely.

Both of these choices are left up to the consumer. The silver lining in these stories seems to be that for now, consumers aren’t buying Thicke’s gross product, which means that product will fail, and the market will have to find something new. So maybe the discussion is working, and the market will change soon. Maybe not, given that the music industry has a long history of these types of rape culture productions. In the end though, the consumer has the power to vote with their dollar in telling the content producers what they want to see.

But hey, no one even pays for music anymore anyways and the companies get money from views on YouTube videos like the ones I’ve provided, which have to happen so that we can even discuss everything that I’m trying to talk about here. So who fucking knows what the future holds?

Resistance is Futile: Mainstream Assimilation and Asking Who Can Participate in the Booty?

The photograph above, used for shitty attempts at click baiting  an article on Billboard.com about the singing competition show THE VOICE, displays the three female judges who have been a part of the show at different times. Two of the artists, Shakira and Christina Aguilera, are Latina, yet the show has managed to eerily morph all three of these stars images into what is virtually the same bleach blonde, fair skinned, Northwest European ideal of beauty. Whether it is part of the shows attempts at keeping a brand that requires their female judge to look a certain way, or if it is an image template that has proven to be a successful marketing tool and has been adopted for that reason by each pop star, they have all participated in assimilation toward the “normal” ideals of beauty and perfection. Either way, this assimilated image is not an isolated incident that is reduced to the images produced by THE VOICE, but it is instead a symptom of a larger problem that has faced “crossover” pop stars for as long as they have existed.

A “crossover” star is a label attached to a star who, because of their race specifically, is considered an outsider to mainstream culture. Mary Beltrán discusses this concept of the “crossover” star and its roots in what was dubbed the “Latin Wave” of the 1990s in her book “Latina/o Stars in the U.S. Eyes.” As Latina stars were making their way into American pop culture, they were not seen as being part of mainstream culture the way a white tar was, but rather a niche market that was permeating mainstream culture. The idea of the “Latin Wave” became that these “crossover” stars were accepted as viable moneymakers in mainstream culture, but were still only really marketable to Latina/o people. The alternative to being seen as just for a niche market was assimilating into the mainstream ideals of what sold and what was marketable to “mainstream, or white, audiences. Through assimilation, these crossover stars could break away from being seen as specifically “Latin” stars, and be seen as regular ol’ run of the mill Hollywood stars. However, assimilation meant the star giving up part of the ethnic background that helped define them in order to be accepted as ethnically vague, or some kind of “exotic” white.

The case study provided by Beltrán is a focus on Jennifer Lopez, possibly the biggest and most successful name to come out of the “Latin Wave.” She describes how J. Lo was first embraced as a Latin star, which not only meant focus on her Latina ethnicity in music and Hollywood roles, but also meant that sexual traits like the “booty,” usually emphasized and eroticized to create the “Spicy Latina” or “Spitfire” stereotype, where put directly under the spotlight and used to market Lopez in the mainstream. There was a constant battle between Lopez and the apparent need for assimilation, and a visible public struggle where her re-branding and marketing attempts to hide her Latina ethnic traits and qualities could be measured against her early interviews where she proudly embraced and promoted her Latina-ness. Lopez was compelled to speak about her ethnicity early on, usually taking full advantage of the emphasis on her derrière, but as she became more successful she began to emphasize her Bronx roots, as opposed to Latin roots, and her Hollywood roles became less Latina specific and more ethnically unidentifiable.

If this case study was to be continued, you can see today that the battle between assimilation and holding onto ethnic roots still plagues J. Lo. As evident by her two most recent, and I think highly contradictory music videos, she shows that she still struggles with the need to market herself as a successful commodity, and the need to promote pride in her ethnic roots while also struggling with the need to promote positive body images for women, and use her status to discuss issues of sexual liberation and agency while occupying an ethnic female body.

Lopez’s first video, “I Luh Ya Papi,” uses the title’s language, as well as the inclusion of two backup dancers who have emphasized Latin vernacular in discussion with a white male video director, to overtly display a Latin ethnic background right from the start. The discussion J.Lo and her backup dancers have with the director is attempting to challenge the typical commodification of the Latina body, speaking against objectifying women in videos, and attempting to reverse the roles so that men are objectified and that women are portrayed as the successful “players” with swarms of sexualized men surrounding them. Lopez openly acknowledges here that she recognizes problems with the portrayal of the female body, and is attempting to make a shift away from that. However, in her next video, she seems to succumb to the very objectification she finds so frustrating, and possibly finds it necessary in order to sell the commodity known as J.Lo.

In the video simply titled “Booty,” Lopez brings direct emphasis to, you guessed it, her Booty, as well as the Booty of Iggy Azalea, who is featured in the video with her. There is not any attempt though, to associate the booty with any kind of ethnic origins. Whereas in the 90s J Lo may have used her butt as a point of ethnic pride, now it is reduced to a simple object of lust, up for grabs by any ethnic or racial background. This is especially prevalent given that Lopez created the video with Azalea, who is criticized for putting on the performance of an Ethnic identity in her public appearance. Along with people like Miley Cyrus and Meghan Trainor, Azalea is part of a current Booty-centric wave that seems to consist of white female artists taking pride in that “boom that all the boys chase,” which seen as exclusive to females of color.

There is a long history of white beauty ideals that has placed female bodies of color as exotic and Othered due to focus by white mainstream culture on enlarged breasts, and most importantly butts, which were displayed as gross exotic fascinations for a dominant white culture who’s ideals of beauty were seen as the exact opposite of an ethnic female body. Since first contact with African women, whites have used black female bodies as the undeniable Other, or the polar opposite, of the fair skinned white females with smaller sexual features. White culture used women of color, such as the Hottentot Venus, to create a racist binary of what beautiful looks like, with white bodies being the ideal. The ideas of assimilation and beauty stem from the black and white body binary, where in order to be successful in the mainstream, or at the very least have an opportunity to try, women of color become as close as they can physically to the white ideal which has been force fed down our throats as what beauty looks like, attempting to get rid of the enlarged features of their bodies, that are used to identify black female bodies as an Other.

However, there is a collision happening right now that becomes emphasized by the Jennifer Lopez/Iggy Azalea video. Where females of color, even J. Lo, have seen themselves forced into a position of assimilation, giving up their ethnic features and traits in order to be more “white” and more successful, it seems now the white stars are beginning to appropriate the features that have for so long been seen as ugly, and Other than what it means to be beautiful and successful, in order to in fact become more successful. Trainor’s video is even seen as inspirational for destroying the traditional notions of a beautiful body. However, she’s not singing or talking about all plus size women, she’s singing about women who are plus size in the right places, meaning white women who are now taking pride in large boobs and booty, that have forever been shunned on black females.

I believe this trend is sparking a need to renegotiate who has the right to use female bodies of color in their music videos. Something like Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” video, with whatever problems it may have, is possibly attempting to own the black female body, and the booty, which has seemingly been reduced to a prop to be exploited in the background of Miley Cyrus and Meghan Trainor. Minaj is taking a more aggressive approach of ownership and agency, while Lopez is perhaps opening the doors saying that all females can participate in the Booty. Coming from a background where Lopez had to sacrifice the Ethnic pride that came with her booty, perhaps accepting white artists who wish to use booty to their advantage is a way for Lopez to be able to regain ownership and discussion of her own. The question that arises is that if every female gets to claim ownership of the booty, regardless of ethnic identity, does the booty mean anything anymore, or has it been reduced and commodified into just another mainstream sexual object.

Borg Cube approaching the Enterprse. If you don’t get the reference… Google.

It seems the Booty trend is coming at pop culture like a Borg collective hell bent on assimilating all Booty’s in its path. I see someone like Jennifer Lopez, with a long history of Booty politics, who may see assimilation of the booty into a larger collective where everyone is able to participate as finally being allowed to use her booty as a successful tool, not just as a Latina, but as an artist just like everyone else. For Lopez, there is no longer a need to hide the booty, however assimilation of the booty into mainstream means that any Ethnic background it is tied to is now lost.

On the other hand, Nicki Minaj sees how the booty, with a long and rich history tied specifically to black female bodies, is being manipulated and used for the purpose of mainstream commodification. She is facing the same booty collective that faced J. Lo, telling Minaj that her booty will be assimilated and adapted, or shared by all females to be used in the mainstream, for whatever purpose, with no respect to the racialized history that applies to it. Minaj is using “Anaconda” to aggressively say back to those attempting to assimilate the booty for their own needs that they have no right, and that the ethnic female body is not a commodity or a product to be sold by the white mainstream that has denied it as an Other for so long. Minaj is resisting the assimilation of the black booty into mainstream as a de-contextualized product.

In other words…

I Luh Ya Worf.