Girls Chase Boys Chase Girls

Tuesday, February 10, 2015 Of Minds & Mixtapes | Zaheera 0 Comments


What would the music video industry be if it weren't for women in slinky bandage dresses flaunting dangerous curves on-screen? On the brink of poverty may be. May be not. We'll never know.

Most might have come pretty far from the Mad Men era, but is it far enough? The media routinely glorifies retrograde stereotypes that most people would assume got left behind 35 years ago, and it's no secret that sexism runs large in the music industry (heck, most industries). Perhaps that's why a music video like this seems newfangled. Ingrid Michaelson is a New York-based indie pop singer-songwriter, and "Girls Chase Boys" is from her recent album Lights Out. The song is amazingly catchy, but it's the video that takes it a few notches higher by sexualizing both men and women equally. Its more fun than you'd imagine.

On the idea behind the song Michaelson tells Entertainment Weekly that
“no matter who or how we love, we are all the same. The video takes that idea one step further, and attempts to turn stereotypical gender roles on their head. Girls don’t exclusively chase boys. We all know this. We all chase each other and in the end we are all chasing after the same thing: love.”
The video is a retake on English singer songwriter Robert Palmer's 1988 iconic music video for "Simply Irresistible". No, actually it takes a swing at the double standards and gender norms of Palmer's era (ours too, if you will).

Palmer's song was pretty hit, reaching #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and #1 on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. It also went on to bag him a Grammy in '89. For reference, here's Palmer's video.


Michaelson's was an upgrade, hands down!
As for sexism, we wouldn't possibly demand accountability from the corporations and media houses responsible for this contemporary cultural attack on 30+ years of feminist progress, but men in bandage dresses could be a fine place to start.
 

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