It's also about protecting [rape] victims and making them feel safe so they don't have to listen to a song that reminds them of horrific experiences. This is the latest development in the story of how the biggest song of the year became the most controversial of the decade: an unprecedented achievement, though not one that fills Thicke with pride. inherent. Sometimes these concerns about "problematic" art go to comical extremes – the Tumblr Your Fave Is Problematic leaves you wondering if there is anything out there that isn't problematic – but at least young consumers are asking the right questions, in the spirit of playwright August Wilson's axiom: "All art is political in the sense that it serves someone's politics.". That could be because, unlike Body Count or Eminem, he didn't intend to be outrageous. What about rock music? Here are some ways you can try to get around the question: I found it in my phone and thought you put it in. Recently, Netmums published a survey claiming that 80% of parents had found their children copying explicit lyrics or dance movies from music videos, while Annie Lennox called for videos to be regulated in the same way as movies. We have methods to deal with these situations and are aware of the ways to protect each other and ensure safety of everyone dealing with them. Maybe it's an easy target because Robin Thicke is kind of slimy. "What [the campaigners] are trying to do is make some music executive alert to the fact that people are upset," says Barlow. This is a very popular question that many of our students often ask. In R&B, such lyrics are par for the course. New US chart rules, which count YouTube views as well as sales, provide an enhanced incentive to produce attention-grabbing videos, creating a kind of outrage arms race. © 2021 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Has the topless mud wrestling in the Girls on Film video slipped his mind? "It really did boggle my mind when people started freaking out about it," says US music critic Maura Johnston. smoldering. "It promotes a very worrying attitude towards sex and consent," explained Kirsty Haigh, EUSA's vice-president of services. "How is that precedent going to be set going forward, not just for music but other forms of media and speech? They don't have to do their homework to get the desired effect, which is traffic.". Answer: Before I give you my amazing list of awesome answers, I encourage you to get the numbers from the people you are actually calling. They're tired of messages that depict women as highly sexualised passive sex objects. Even the most prominent model in the Blurred Lines video, Emily Ratajkowski, has said: "I'm glad that people are criticising pop lyrics, because I think that's an important thing to do." At the end of March, mid-table R&B singer Thicke, along with producer Pharrell Williams and rapper TI, released Blurred Lines, a libidinous R&B party jam about a woman in a nightclub who may or not be interested in him. This week, a tipping point has been reached. And it does. Some of the rhetoric may be blunt, but nothing is blunter than a ban. Common Ways to Say Goodbye in English 1. It seems like a domino effect: response after response after response, and that's helping the song do well and make even more people aware of it. If the MTV generation was the first to be exposed to the power of music videos, then the YouTube generation is the first to understand those videos in the context of social media and online discourse. Experiment: By A/B testing different subject lines or calls to action, such as a button or an image instead of hyperlinked text, for example, to see if you can drive more click-throughs. And it starts a public discussion. https://the1709blog.blogspot.com/2015/03/whats-wrong-with-blurred-lines.html I directed the girls to look into the camera. (idiom) to say one’s thoughts so that other people can hear them. ", He also has doubts about the efficacy of age-rating music videos. unrealized. Woo!) underlying. Remove Blurred Lines from the equation and the other cases fit more in line with how copyright has been handled, shifting the law in slower and more predictable ways. told (verb) … Communicate via email, text message and social media. Closing: End with a standard sign-off such as “Thanks again” or … Do you have examples of words that have worked well for your organization’s email campaigns? Bye. One critic, who asked to be quoted anonymously, says: "The lyrics talk about the absurdity of the industry and the media but the main visual reference is black music. I don't think it will change anything. Nothing changes overnight, but it's about slowly and surely changing the culture." If you don't think the song's narrator is willing to have sex without consent, then the song seems at worst sleazy, and the reaction overblown. (Audience applauds) Was O'Connor making a valid feminist critique of misogyny in the music industry, or was she indulging in priggish "slut-shaming"? Custom, user-friendly website design for government. In a new interview with GQ’s Will Welch, Pharrell has denounced “Blurred Lines,” the 2013 Robin Thicke song that he co-wrote and featured on. Well, you can't know they want it unless they tell you they want it. It’s appropriate for friends and family, as well as co-workers and business partners. Over 4,500 government agencies have chosen Granicus to modernize their online services, web presence, and communications programs. Wed 13 Nov 2013 14.32 EST It's worrying that young people seem to see censorship as a solution to complex societal issues. Granicus provides the first and only unified Civic Engagement Platform for all government structures. It's a culture of racism and sexism that we need to change.". What you do and say with it has a lot of weight. Add in a “Call to Action:” When referencing a call to action in your subject line, be clear and simple. I don't think the video is sexist. The church that has lost Jesus is a church of the devil. There are a lot of shock tactics these days: people trying to outdo each other, which will probably culminate in two people fucking on stage at the Grammys. Also in September, Edinburgh University Students' Association (EUSA) became the first student body to ban Blurred Lines. It seems impossible that anyone with the faintest interest in popular culture could have missed either the song or the controversy, but here is a recap. What about Katy Perry or Gaga or Miley? If anything, it will make the actions more outrageous so more people talk about them. It has sold 4.6 million tracks. In fact, there are several ways to express your gratitude! The film was held up as an example of good cinema. Other Ways to Say For Example | For Example Synonym Image. In September, contributors to Project Unbreakable, a photographic project dedicated to rape survivors, held up placards comparing words spoken by their attackers to lines from the song. That moral panic was driven by older, more conservative campaigners, but much of the current opposition to pop's excesses stems from young feminists. Granicus is the leading provider of citizen engagement technologies and services for the public sector, bringing governments closer to the people they serve with the first-and-only Civic Engagement Platform. The song says: 'You know you want it.' The last time pop music inspired such snowballing outrage was during the rise of the Parents' Music Resource Centre (PMRC). On the other hand, there are number of keywords that can be detrimental to open and engagement rates, including: Free: Near the top of the list of words to avoid for email subject lines is “free” due to overuse. It can also harm a sender’s reputation. May it never be! The video is another matter. “Since the ‘Blurred Lines’ case, there has been an increase in calls to lawyers from clients along the lines of, ‘This sounds a little like this [other song]. It was conceived and directed by Diane Martel, who told US website Grantland: "It forces the men to feel playful and not at all like predators. ", Latchford is more optimistic. The Duran Duran frontman reckons Robin Thicke's controversial song and video has 'disempowered' women. suppressed. In an interview with GQ's Stelios Phili, Thicke explained: Pharrell and I were in the studio and [...] I was like, "Damn, we should make something like that ['Got to Give It Up'], something with that groove." "Once you have an opinion that can be summed up by a single word – rapey, which I think is a terrible word – it's something that people can run with in an intense and far-reaching way, even if they haven't listened to the song," says Johnston. How often in this virtual … abeyant. The song might have escaped censure if the video, in which the three male performers goof around with scantily clad (and, in one version, topless) models, had not generated its own separate yet overlapping controversy. Lily Allen launched the video to her comeback single, Hard Out Here, which takes aim at music industry sexism with specific reference to the Blurred Lines video. The phrase "blurred lines" refers to mixed messages which the male protagonist finds frustrating—but nowhere is it suggested that he therefore feels entitled to … Set up a guided tour and experience how our solutions will work for your organization. Robin Thicke has teamed up with T.I. For us it's not a problem with black music specifically, but the music industry as a whole. When popular MC Rick Ross rapped, on Rocko's single UOENO, about spiking someone's drink in order to have sex with her, public outcry forced him to apologise. But it's weird to me because I didn't see it and I still don't.". If we stop thinking about the Blurred Lines case as a major shift in copyright law, it becomes what it actually is: An outlier. They pointedly replaced it on the album with a new song called Freedom of Speech. Many people who follow pop music closely, however, are surprised that Blurred Lines has become such a lightning rod. It joins around 20 other UK student unions to do so. "This is about ensuring that everyone is fully aware that you need enthusiastic consent before sex. The song's beats are sampled from Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up." Blurred Lines was not only a phenomenal read but had a big side of fate in the pages. Like every song churned out by the major music industries, "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke is pretty much on every radio industry you listen to. In the case of Blurred Lines, many listeners came to the song via the controversy and therefore had an opinion before they had a reaction. "I'm all for freedom of expression," she began ominously, "but this is clearly one step beyond, and it's clearly into the realm of porn. "This is just a cheesy pickup line song and everyone was like: 'No, it's about forcing a woman against her will.' See more. Martel's thoughts have received little attention, but then one flaw in the current debate is an unwillingness to credit female artists with ideas of their own. "I think pop is scarily powerful. Online citizen self-service solutions & operations automation. ", "In principle, I'm against bans," says Padraig Reidy of Index on Censorship. "You have this culture of commentary online where people are pressured to constantly come up with controversial angles to stick out. The church that has lost its love is a godless church. If pop music has created a problem, then only pop music can solve it. Our next performers are an improv troupe known for their quirky humor and on-the-spot punchlines. With so many emails per day and so little time to connect, subject lines are crucial. "That's music to their ears. veiled. Despite the title of Robin Thicke’s new song, when a friend of mine first mentioned the “rapey” undertones of “Blurred Lines,” I was taken aback. Right now there's a lot of tension between women and men online so this was a way of women taking a piece of pop culture and saying: 'No, we're against this.' The trio made two music videos for the single, one clean and one explicit, both featuring models dancing around the men, posing with farm animals, and having their hair brushed. 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