Right Sound, Wrong Thought

I am a big fan of pop music.  The top forty songs on the radio are usually just fine with me, no matter how many times they crop up.  When it comes to music, I’m not terribly picky—so long as the tune is fairly melodic, I’m all right with listening as I drive along.  Recently, however, I’ve been paying a bit more attention, and I’m starting to get concerned about the words that are worming their way into our ears.  In particular, I’m worried about what young women are hearing when they turn on the radio.  In more than one instance, modern music is starting to give girls the exact wrong message.

Let’s start with “Hey Mama” by David Guetta, with Nicki Minaj, Bebe Rexha and Afrojack.  This one has got me conflicted, because I love the sound.  It’s edgy, exciting, and really quite fascinating—cut off the words and I’d be happy to listen to it all day.  But the line “yes, I’ll do the cooking, yes, I’ll do the cleaning” has me switching stations every time.  That line, in connection with all the rest (the next is “yes, I’ll keep the na-na real sweet for your eating”, which I don’t think is talking about bananas), gives me the image of a woman confined to the kitchen for domestic work and rough sex whenever her man wants it.  Not acceptable, sorry.  The song seems to be  a step in the direction of a woman expressing her sexuality, and I agree, we need to be less shy of that these days.  But it’s a step that has us falling in a hole, making this woman sound desperate and even pornographic, setting aside her own wants and even her name for sex.  I don’t know about you, but I will never answer anyone who calls me “mama” to whom I did not give birth.  That is not my name, thanks.  

From the other side of a controlling relationship is Nick Jonas’s “Jealous”.  Again, an enjoyable song with great music, but the lines about a boy telling his girlfriend that she is getting too much attention from others sets my teeth on edge.  The chorus is a detailed description of his reaction—clenched jaw, heavy breathing, red face: all signs of excessive anger.  The speaker even acknowledges that “it’s not your fault that I hover”, but the following line, “I mean no disrespect” rings hollow.  He is trying to control the girl’s actions, accusing her of straying “even though I know you love me”.  As much as I am a fan, Nick, it is not, in fact, your “right to be hellish.”  Jealousy is natural, but it does not give one the right to mistreat one’s partner.  If you’re jealous, that’s your problem to deal with.  Let me know if I can help, but don’t try to tell me how I have to fix it.  

Then there’s Meghan Trainor.  Oh, Meghan.  More than one of Meghan’s songs have made it onto my blacklist.  “All About That Bass” was a favorite of mine for weeks, until I really started to listen.  I’m not all that bothered by the slur against “skinny bitches”, though it isn’t a very nice thing to hear.  What bothers me is the line in the chorus that’s meant to be reassuring: “boys like a little more booty to hold at night.”  Wait, so that’s why I should be okay with my size?  What about loving and accepting myself?  No, it’s the approval of men that I should be striving for, apparently.  Another of Meghan’s songs that is starting to bother me is “Dear Future Husband”, which, aside from implying in its entirety that a woman needs a husband to be happy, also gives the impression that women are flighty, insane creatures and a man just needs to be patient with us.  (Meghan’s work has been picked through with more detail and eloquence here).

Now, all of these songs are ones that I’ve found myself singing in the middle of my workday.  They are catchy, fun tunes that stick with you, and that makes it all the more worrying  to me, because it means their message is sticking, too.  Girls are singing these songs and have no idea of what exactly it is they are internalizing in the process.  They are learning that they are valuable only in the respect of what they give to men; that men are allowed to be controlling and possessive and that being the object of such desire makes them “sexy beautiful”; that they need to strive to please men and seek out relationships with them to be complete.  Obviously, our music industry is falling short.  All of these artists are incredibly talented—what if that talent were directed at building up our girls, making them stronger in themselves and in the world?  It would be nice to be able to sing out with their music, without shame, without guilt, knowing I’m reinforcing something good. 

This, then, is my challenge to those who write songs that may sometime be working their way up to the top.  As you sing, think about what your words are actually saying.  Think about a young girl, just starting to figure out who she is and what she wants to be.  What is your song teaching her?  If it’s not to be the very best she can be, for her own sake, then maybe you should consider a rewrite.

Find the True

As a writer of science fiction and fantasy, I don’t spend a lot of time steeped in reality.  This morning, I was worried about how an artificially-intelligent machine would track down one of its friends without the enemy spotting it along the way; later today, I will turn my attention to a reincarnated princess and the nightmares she has of her past life.  For me, the word “reality” is loosely defined.

I wonder, however, if it’s not the same way for writers at the other end of the literary spectrum.  I read an article recently about memoirists, who possibly have the most right to call their works “real”.  These people are writing about their own lives, on which one would hope they would be the foremost authority.  Yet many memoirists talk about how they have to stretch the truth, adding things that may not have happened or skimming over events that they deem unimportant to the story they’re trying to tell.  That’s the point, after all—they’re reshaping their own lives into a cohesive, sensible story line, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about life, it’s not cohesive and it’s rarely sensible.  Thus, creative nonfiction is a misnomer—there’s a lot more fiction in there than readers might think.

So what about my “fantasy”?  Is there nothing real in that?  If that were true, I doubt anyone would read it, and yet fantasy remains a very popular genre.  In the end, fantasy explores aspects of reality that we don’t often encounter in our daily lives.  What happens when a man can literally look into the darkness of his own soul?  Ask Ged, the main character of Ursula LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea.  What would be the result if a man could use words to corrupt others’ beliefs and values?  Check out the Graceling series by Kristin Cashore to find out.  How might the widespread use of robots change the way humans interact with one another?  See Asimov’s I, Robot for details.  There are limitations in our “reality”.  Fantasy and science fiction opens doors to more possibilities than this world allows, taking average human beings and planting them in extraordinary circumstances.

Where is the boundary line in literature?  What’s real and what isn’t?  I think people have been asking that question for a long, long time.  They’ll probably still be asking it in five hundred years when cities fly and humans are living on the Moon.  Writers are simply the first to ask “what if?”, and from the answers they come up with, we can learn more about our own "reality".

**The title is a nod to Anne McCaffrey, from the first in her Harper Hall trilogy, Dragonsong.