There are no blurred lines, Mr Thicke. No still means No....

Now that new parodies are popping up every day, I can't ignore the notorious video for Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines any longer. If you've been living under a rock and haven't seen it yet, check it out. You can also watch the unrated version, which is pretty much the same except that the women are topless. It also uses balloons to completely spell out such witticisms as "Robin Thicke has a big dick".

The first time I heard the track, I couldn't help bopping along, as it's undeniably catchy. The constant repetition of  "you know you want it, but you're a good girl," made me roll my eyes, but at least it's kind of true to life. It's incredible how many guys will think that some sort of prudish self-denial is the reason you're SHOWING NO INTEREST IN THEM WHATSOEVER. (And then if you manage to convince them you really do know your own mind and you honestly don't fancy them, they assume you're a lesbian. Talk about ego.)

Along with Robin Thicke, the video features Pharrell Williams and rapper T.I. (aka Clifford Joseph Harris Jr.) basically standing around while vacant-eyed, pouting models prance before them in very few clothes. As the video has attracted the wrath of feminists, Robin Thicke has spoken out to defend it, saying “We pretty much wanted to take all the taboos of what you’re not supposed to do – bestiality, you know, injecting a girl in her bum with a five-foot syringe –I just wanted to break every rule of things you’re not supposed to do and make people realise how silly some of these rules are.”

Yes, those silly rules! Defying them makes you a super-duper groundbreaker. (Actually, I'm not sure where he got the idea that there is bestiality in the video. One of the girls is holding a lamb at one point, and there is a large stuffed dog which one of them sits on. I guess Robin thinks that when children ride on carousel horses, they are also somehow having sex with them?)

Just a note, Robin: only a total amateur would actually point to his eye 
when singing the line "maybe I'm going blind."

He warmed to his theme, explaining “We tried to do everything that was taboo... everything that is completely derogatory towards women. Because all three of us are happily married with children, we were like, “We’re the perfect guys to make fun of this.”

Hey, I've never shot anyone in the head! That means I'd be the perfect person to do it as a joke! 

It's always hard to gauge someone's tone in print, and I've certainly seen some interviews in which a sardonic pop star makes a joke and the wide eyed 12-year-old magazine editor writes a big headline believing they were being serious. So I think we can safely assume it was a "joke" when Robin said, "People say, “Hey, do you think this is degrading to women?” I’m like, “Of course it is. What a pleasure it is to degrade a woman. I’ve never gotten to do that before. I’ve always respected women.”

Courtesy of PerezHilton.com

And what of the lyrics? The "I know you want it" line is what's got them into trouble with the anti-rape brigade (which is hopefully everyone in the world); it's possible that the song has created such a furore not because it's the worst offender in the "misogynistic lyrics" game, but because it struck a chord with every woman who has ever been chatted up in a nightclub. Or yelled at from a white van. Or groped in the street. You get the picture. (And if you don't, check out everydaysexism.com.) And as Grooves on the Radio points out, "Threatening to tear someone’s ass in two is a lot less sexy than Clifford thinks it is." 

There is also a reference to smokeable drugs (accompanied with typically clumsy symbolism by... a gas mask: "Baby can you breathe? I got this from Jamaica, It always works for me...") which reminds me of my favourite chat up line, "Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?"

The shoot was directed by a woman: Diane Martel, who suggested going for a “Terry Richardson kind of video.” (Yes, THAT Terry Richardson.) Robin Thicke has also made a big deal of how he asked his wife's "permission" to make a tiresomely sexist video and she was fine with it, so why aren't we? He even claims that he hadn't wanted to release the unrated version until his wife and her friends convinced him to. (Oh, stop hiding behind your wife and just own your work like a man!) 

The approval of these ladies is meant to give the video immunity from feminist critique, but women have been willingly undermining themselves for years. The models who take part in video shoots like this, for instance. (Seriously, how do the cast and crew feel on these jobs? Do they go home feeling proud that they have made a positive contribution to society?)

And then there's Katie Price. Let's just forget the idea that if
 a woman chooses to do it, it must be all right.

Thicke's most recent defence is that the song is "actually a feminist movement within itself." With the lyrics "Now he was close, Tried to domesticate you, But you're an animal..... Just let me liberate you... That man is not your maker," you could argue that he's all about women's emancipation. But it sounds to me like the hypothetical girl could just be leaving one controlling relationship for another, this time with some doofus in a bar who can "save" her because he thinks he knows what she needs better than she does. I could be wrong, though... 

 

It's true that there are far more offensive videos and lyrics out there, but the fact that so many people cry "harmless" when it comes to imagery like this shows how far we have to go:

                                One of these pictures is much more surprising than the other. 

Among the many parodies* available, The Mod Carousel is one which uses  "gender reversal" to show how ridiculous men look when they act in the same hyper-sexualised way we're used to seeing women.

(*I think Melinda Hughes' "douche" video is my favourite of the bunch. If we can't change them, we might as well laugh at them.)

In an interview with GQ (which is worth scrolling through for the articulate comments) Thicke keeps talking about how the video is "funny" and even "Benny Hill", which makes it sound like he's watching something different to the rest of us (although it does have some hilarious moments). The reality is four and a half minutes of tired old clichés; strangely joyless considering how much "fun" those models were supposed to be having.

Despite his alternative theory that they were deliberately being offensive, Thicke insists "We’re not ogling and degrading them, we’re laughing and being silly with them.” Which is interesting, because I would have thought that "being silly" would consist of a group of people who are all wearing roughly the same amount of clothing, have equal opportunities to speak, and are maybe running around having a water fight or something. Not men leading a woman around by her hair, miming slapping her arse, calling her a bitch, and only letting her speak to say "Miaow."  The "we're just being playful" thing smacks of the usual "Where's your sense of humour?" excuse.

Thicke points out "That's what great art does – it's supposed to stir conversation, it's supposed to make us talk about what's important." 

Dude, you gave up your right to refer to the video as "art" when you agreed to splatter the screen with hashtags in order to drum up publicity for yourself. When you make a video featuring scantily clad women and social networking tips, let's not pretend you're doing anything but appealing to the lowest common denominator, ok? It's just embarrassing. 

Has womb; will get hysterical.

Did you know, the Sun newspaper features a topless woman every day? Of course you did. The words “page three” have been weirdly synonymous with “tits” for years.  It may be something you don’t think about much; I certainly didn’t. I’m not a great reader of the Sun, and I had sort of accepted that they had page 3 girls, the same way I accepted that their articles included sentences such as “Tot-attacking MONSTER to ROT in jail.” It’s just the way they ARE, bless ‘em.

Luckily, Lucy Holmes is not afflicted with a similar apathy; she has started a “No more Page 3” campaign which is snowballing with a speed that must be most alarming to Dominic Mohan, The Sun’s editor. (As of right now, the number is 38,059.)

Labour MP Clare Short attempted to ban page 3 twice, back in 1986 and 2004. A clue to her lack of success can be found in the response from her peers; “As I spoke, putting the case for the removal of pornographic pictures from the press, a large clump of Tory MPs began to giggle and chortle and make crude remarks about me, my bill and my body.” (See what happens when you go to a boys-only school?)

So, is there any justification for keeping Page 3? Neil Wallis wrote amusingly in the Huffington Post this week about “Why the Self-Serving Wimmin Who Want to Ban Page 3 Are So Wrong”. His resorting to a misspelling that nobody has used since the 1970s, along with words such as “hysteria” and “shrill” are all fairly obvious attempts to undermine the campaigners. (Neil, if you want us to take you seriously, learn to spell. It’s Womb-en, ok?)

He also admits defeat rather quickly, saying “The answer is easy to those who will hear it: NO-ONE CARES.” Good. Then you won’t mind if we take page 3 away then, will you?

He’s under the impression that anyone who would dare to vote against the “institution” is out of touch with reality; Sun readers aren’t like that, you see. As he says of its vast readership, “Do those three million worry about Page Three? No, they worry about their kids' health, the rent, putting food on the table, work, their relationship, benefits scroungers, immigration, the telly, and a drink at the weekend.” As Glosswatch puts it, “As a white, university-educated, middle-class feminist, there are many things about which I don’t give a toss. My children’s health and earning enough money to pay the bills, for instance. When it comes to those things, I really couldn’t give a monkeys. I prefer to let the “real women” worry about such mundane trifles.”

So what about all those poor Sun readers who just want to see “a bit of fun” in their newspaper and can't be bothered to turn to the comics? I hate to throw your own words back in your face, Neil, but: NO-ONE CARES. So what if it hasn’t occurred to Sun readers that having sexist drivel might be a bad thing to have in a “family newspaper”? It doesn’t mean that nobody else is allowed to think about it or start a campaign.

Of course, nobody who is in favour of Page 3 wants to see bare breasts in the newspaper for selfish reasons, good God, no! It’s really just a way of doing young, impressionable girls a favour. To take their chances of “modelling” away from them is pure arrogance, according to Mr Wallis: “And why shouldn't a girl stuck behind the bread counter at Tesco, an office girl down the local council, the unemployed, find a new glamorous life via Page Three?”

      What on earth would young girls do without role models like this?

This seems to be quite a common defence of “glamour modelling”. It's the route to a “better life” for many young women! A life which revolves around fake tan and vajazzling and the knowledge that little girls are looking at them and hoping that one day, they too will be topless in a newspaper! Imagine a world where this didn't happen. Imagine a world in which Jordan had never become famous! Wouldn’t that be, um, awful.....?! 

I’m always suspicious of anything which requires the defence “it’s just a bit of fun.” This seems to be brought out all too often, explaining everything from rape jokes to mean practical jokes (all shit and giggles til someone has a heart attack) and of course, beauty pageants in which 8-year-old girls parade around in bikinis and heels. You know what? When something’s a bit of fun, there is no need to point it out. Fun is one of those wonderfully self-evident things. It doesn’t normally involve 50% of the population being valued only for their sexuality. 

As  Benjamin Jones of Mitch and Murray points out: “It should be fairly obvious that a special page in a newspaper dedicated to a woman with her tits out for no other purpose than having the presence of some tits is not really there to advance equality or celebrate women.  It’s there to say “corrrrrrr, nice tits” and that’s it.  And just because they add “Sally, 19, is currently studying politics at Birkbeck” it doesn’t mean she’s being treated as an equal.” 

Wallis wants to know “Why aren’t those (No More Page 3) petition signatories putting their energy into campaigning against, say, female genital mutilation? White slavery? Sexual stereotyping in the workplace? Forced marriages? Under-age sex and pregnancy? TxtSexploitation in schools? The list is endless – in my view, all these are far more important… but silence.”

Well, it’s not really silence, is it? The fact that you know about these issues at all tells you that somebody, somewhere, in the media has reported on them. And as others have pointed out, most people can manage to sign more than one petition. The point is, Page 3 is ONE huge issue we CAN solve very easily, and it would make an immediate difference to women in Britain; we would be assured that showing topless women is the territory of lads’s mags and porn, not daily newspapers. 

Clare Short writes “One young woman told me that she went to a police station in London to report a sexual attack and was confronted by a pornographic calendar. She went home feeling sick. She did not report the attack and felt that she could not trust the police who proudly displayed it on their wall. Another woman went with her small daughter to report a road accident and was confronted by a similar calendar.” The sooner pornography loses its veneer of normality and “harmless fun,” the better. 

So there you go. I don’t care if the lack of Page 3 means that all those poor Sun readers will be sobbing into their cornflakes every morning when they are DEPRIVED of the glorious sight of a 19-years-old’s knockers. Boo hoo. Get over it. (Because it’s not as if they can see bare breasts anywhere else, is it? It’s not like people have the internet on their phones or anything like that.) I don’t even care if there are some young women who were planning to make a career out of taking their clothes off and now have to find something else to do, possibly involving their brains, creativity and imagination. I don’t care if Page 3 is an institution. Time’s up.

You can start by signing HERE.

When foot in mouth disease flares up....

Oh Kim Kardashian, you may have the face of an angel and the curves of a runaway train, but you do say some silly things.

I am a huge fan of etiquettehell.com a website with incredible stories of everyday rudeness; a place where you can learn appropriate responses to inappropriate observations (the catch all phrase being “What an interesting assumption,”) as well as enjoy “Oh no she di’n’t!” calibre stories. 

I have noticed lately that men seem to have forgotten that “How old are you?” is one of those questions you must never ask a lady. (And if they’re not sure whether or not you are a lady, a knuckle sandwich should help them out.) Age now seems to be their first enquiry, closely followed by “Who do you live with?” which I now realise is what’s considered a “subtle” alternative to asking if you are single. One guy even followed this up (in the space of about three minutes) by asking about my last relationship. What else do you want to know, how much I weigh? 

Famous men also seem to be etiquettely challenged when it comes to chatting up women. Cristiano Ronaldo successfully seduced the mother of his baby with the line “Me.You. Fuck fuck.’ Which would surely result in any self-respecting woman responding with “You. Door. Fuck off.” Alas, it seems that fame and money go even further than personality.

(If any elderly relations are reading this, apologies for my disgraceful language.)

Some celebrities are worth following for the guaranteed genius of their quotes. Katie Price defended her use of botox with “I don’t worry about not being able to show emotion. It’s not like I’m an actor and need to have that ability.” No, Katie, but you are a human being. Let’s not forget that sometimes, even people who AREN’T Kate Winslet value being able to move their faces.
 

Dane Bowers confessed “I don’t really like Shakespeare. But I prefer the more modern stuff he wrote to that old school shit. I can’t understand most of it.” At least he’s honest, although I’m not sure what “modern stuff” Shakey wrote. (Could he be thinking of William Shatner?)

Some celebs have been pounced on for creating controversy, Kim Kardashian momentarily forgot about her own topless posing and sex tapes when she tweeted her disgust at a fellow restaurant patron daring to breastfeed with “no cover up”. The horror! (Although I do agree that changing a diaper at the table is going above and beyond the call of duty.) 

Kristin Stewart got into trouble for saying that photos of herself dealing with intrusive media attention made her feel “like I'm looking at someone being raped". Insensitive perhaps, but if that’s the way she feels, the Thought Police can’t exactly change that. (And I don’t suppose many people, especially at the age of twenty, could cope with the attention of the world’s media AND bloodthirsty Twilight fans...)

I’m no stranger to the tactless comment myself (hey, I’m a Sagittarian!) My most recent effort was while chatting to an American advertising executive about the differences between the US and UK. “How do you stand the TV?” I asked. “When there’s an ad break before the programme, then after the opening credits, then every three minutes...” He politely mentioned “Well, it’s my business, so....” and I frantically back pedalled, “Well, of course, there are the annoying adverts, and then there are the really good ones.... I can’t think of any really good ones right now... but I’m sure all of yours are...” 

It’s a good thing I don’t embarrass too easily; I also made a mirthful entrance to a garden party recently. The invitation was for a “Mad hatter’s tea party,” and the dress code read “Tea at the Ritz.” Hurrah! I donned my puffiest skirt and little top hat and set off, looking only slightly kooky. On the way, I met a small bumblebee who seemed to be ailing; I come from a household where poorly bees are always fed with watery honey. So I picked him up with a leaf and continued to my friend’s house with the unfortunate insect cupped in my palm, hoping I could perk him up with some sugar upon my arrival. 

Tottering as fast as my high heels could carry me, I arrived at the party to find a roomful of men staring dispassionately at the football game on TV. As opening lines go, “Has anyone got any honey? I’ve got a little sick bee here!” has to be my favourite to date. 

Unfortunately Mr Buzzy was not long for this world, but he did at least get a last meal (sugary water). And while I was the only one who had actually taken the “Ritz” part of the invitation to heart, in the words of Dita Von Teese, “I LOVE being overdressed.” But perhaps that makes me rude?