Sexist video 'Blurred Lines' as a tribute to Vogue

Most of you have probably heard Robin Thicke's insanely popular song 'Blurred Lines'. What made this song so popular is undoubtedly the video - it is either much loved or hated. For those of you who haven't seen it, I'll try to summarize it in a sentence. Thicke and his buddies, fully dressed, are acting all cool and macho while several topless women dance around them, crawl, eat hot dogs, are being blown cigarette smoke in their faces and are "gently" kicked. An increasing number of people started calling this video sexist, so at some point, Robin Thicke and his buddies realized they should defend their work of art. How did they plan to do that? Pharrell Williams, one of the buddies, recently said that the video never meant to objectify women but make 'a moving image of a page in Vogue' (Littlejohn, 2013). There you go. Not that they were wrong; this, most often, is how an average page in Vogue looks like. Vogue's sexist influence spread far beyond its cover pages and has reached one of the most viewed videos ever, and hence, wider audience. This video will not be seen only by women interested in fashion (like Vogue most likely will), but by people of all age and sex. Indirectly, Vogue wins in spreading its sexist philosophy beyond its pages, even if this video was meant to criticize it, which is, in my opinion, highly unlikely.

Littlejohn, G, 2013, 'Pharell Williams says Blurred Lines Was Meant to be a 'Moving Vogue Page', Entertainment Wise, viewed on November 22, http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news/121289/Pharrell-Williams-Says-Blurred-Lines-Video-Was-Meant-To-Be-A-Moving-Vogue-Page

Image: McLaren, J, 2013, 'Guest Post: #Sexism: stop blurring those lines", Shameless, viewed December 2, http://www.shamelessmag.com/blog/2013/09/guest-post-sexism-stop-blurring-those-lines/