Robin Thicke: Romance As Manipulation
A Still From Thicke’s New Music Video.
Cue the whole: “I’m so sorry I hurt you. I love you. I want you back” card that men usually play when they screw up a relationship. In fact, just think about how many songs exist from men who are apologizing to women because they’ve done something to hurt them. Men spend time and energy writing songs to apologize to women, instead of putting that same energy into being good partners. Seems a bit backwards.
In entertainment news, Robin Thicke released his new music video for his song “Get Her Back” which is essentially a creepy [framed as artsy] attempt to get his former wife Paula Patton back after he reportedly cheated on her a lot……[and made Blurred Lines, lol].
For me, the whole thing just seems manipulative…and uncreative. The video consists of Thicke randomly having blood on his face which is something that I don’t understand. There are even several times where he makes a gun-symbol with his hand and then places it up to his head which is basically the man-way of saying “I’ll kill myself if you don’t stay with me…even though i make it wholly unbearable for you to stay with me.”
It seems like he’s trying really hard to look like he’s depressed and exhausted which he probably accomplished by not wearing make up. It all just seems like a public crass attempt to get Paula to feel bad for him.
Also, it seems like the producers for the video cast a woman who slightly resembles Patton; however, it’s probably *not* a good idea if you’ve cheated on your woman, and then rather than just having a music video with your face crying into a camera screen [in Sinead O’Connor and Miley Cyrus fashion], you have a brown woman rubbing your body…who is NOT your wife. Probably not the best option…so…
Thicke with Patton-look-alike hugging him…
While it can be nice to see heterosexual meathead guys write endearing songs for women instead of shit like, “I know you want it” [obviously Patton didn’t!] we can’t conflate charm with creepy manipulative man moves. I mean, that’s what romance is though. Romance is the greatest lie ever told to heterosexual women. If it weren’t for romance films which feed women lies about men, women probably wouldn’t even date men. Romance becomes the brainwashing tool for women to stay with guys who are horrible, and for men to think that acting creepy and suicidal is a turn-on.
In fact, it feels like Thicke is using his break up [or his cheating escapade that hurt Patton] to create songs for women that are superficially sweet and charming, especially since everyone involved in the Blurred Lines franchise is trying to shed their image of being sexist rapey misogynists [think of Pharrell talking about women’s empowerment shortly after Blurred Lines, and creating an album called “Girls.”]
While “Get Her Back” is catchy [prob because Thicke didn’t write it], I just find this whole spectacle of man-suffering-because-woman-left-him-even-though-he-cheated, just pathetic. It seems as if he thought everyone would be like “awwww….puppy dog” but many youtube comments demonstrate that many folks dislike the song.
I mean…just imagine the existence many woman have. You’re with a man who treats you like crap and cheats on you, and then he spends night and day writing songs [that he’s monetarily benefitting from] to tell you how sorry he is [while he has pretty brown women rubbing up on him as he cries for you in the music videos]. I mean, his whole album is titled, “Paula.” Seriously, abusers do things like this. They hurt you, and then they try to “keep” you by apologizing profusely about how sorry they are, and how they’ll never do it again…even though they still don’t really know what the problem is. Naturally, when you get back with them, they hurt you again! When you don’t come back, they threaten suicide and all these other things that you evidently can fix by simply dating them again. Right.
Masculinity becomes consumed with creepiness, suicide, and obsessive stalking behavior. This is framed as “romantic” rather than scary.
While “Get Her Back” is catchy, I think it’s a complementary follow up to “Blurred Lines.” They both are creepy, manipulative, and desperate.
Within the “Get Her Back” video, there appears to be text conversations between Patton and Thicke. My favorite message conversation in the video goes like this:
Thicke: “I wrote a whole album about you.”
Patton: “I don’t care.”
Here’s the video:
