This music video analysis discusses the music video for Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" and identifies several stereotypes and instances of objectification of women. It notes that the video uses quick cuts, sexual imagery, and voyeurism to grab audience attention at the start. Throughout the video, hashtags are used to invite target audiences on social media. Some lyrics are identified as humiliating to women. The analysis discusses several stereotypical portrayals of women as objects meant to please the audience and follow male commands. These include a toy car rolling down a woman's back and a man brushing a woman's hair like she is a pet. Overall, the analysis argues the video receives criticism for its degrading objectification

1. Music Video Analysis by Janakan LOGANATHAN

2. About the music video…
 When the song starts there is a cheerful, funky beat being played constantly to get the
audience to be engaged and addicted to the song. The instant quick panning shot of
the women sexually being held by the star artist ‘Robin Thicke’ grabs the audiences’
attention immediately as the audiences are here to figure out the binary opposition
which are ‘countertypes vs. stereotypes’ and ‘male vs. female’. There is also a notion
of voyeurism being used at the beginning of the music video where ‘Pharrell Williams’
is observing the mid-waist shots whilst singing the lyrics. We get the impression that this
music video is a 21st century song due to the stylist conventions such as the clothing of
the characters for example the hat and the suit Pharrell Williams is wearing. Moreover,
this video contains cat walks of the female artists which signifies the sexual content
throughout this music video. The women antagonist holding the goat is a form of
innocence which is portrayed throughout this music video.

3.  Throughout this music video, Robin Thicke has invited the target audience. One
if the ways he has achieved this is by using the hashtag “#TICKE” at the
beginning of the music video in bright red, bold text. The hashtag trend is
extremely popular in modern day society (e.g. contemporarily used on Twitter)
hence why Robin Thicke has used it for the music video. The purpose of
hashtag is to gain his target audiences to grab his attention through social
networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. The hashtag will be commonly
used on social networking sites where people will follow the trend by sharing
the video through using the hashtag.
How does the music video invite
the audiences?

4.  Mid way through the music video there is another stylist convention
which is used again in this music video. The form of hashtag is extremely
popular in modern day society which will help the star artists attract
viewers from social networking sites. As the mid-waist shot zooms into
the characters the hashtag instantly appears on the screen in red bold
text which is really effective for the audiences. Furthermore, the lyrics
“You’re far from plastic, talk about getting blasted” is a clear insult to
women as it is humiliating and the men are demonstrated as if they
command the female characters. This music video contains a lot of the
male gaze to show how the men view the female artists.

5. Stereotypes…
 This music video contains a lot of stereotypes of female artists. Here is a form of
stereotypes being portrayed in this music video. The still shot of the toy car rolling down
the women’s back strongly signifies that they have portrayed women to look stupid and
following the men’s commands as they are only there to sell their body, look attractive
and pleasing the audiences to watch the music video. This is a technique which is used
frequently in most of the postmodern music video as it sells the music video to the
target audience. Additionally, this music video creates more and more tension and
confusion due to the questions the audiences would be asking themselves “why would
the women want to be in this video if it is degrading and making the women look stupid
and only be used to boost up the video?” - this is called enigma where it is hard to
understand what the women would get out of this music video other than hates from
women and attraction from men.

6. More stereotypes…
 Here is another form of stereotypes as the main character (Pharrell
Williams) is brushing the women’s hair with a dog comb. The gesture
and facial expression is very casual in which the male character is
holding the comb and brushing her hair strongly signifies that she is
acting like a pet towards him which is extremely humiliating the
women as it connotes that women should be represented as
objects and pets and should be controlled by the men only.

7. Here are some of the ‘YouTube’ comments
on this music video. Although the star artists
characters are extremely popular and
likeable by the audiences, they have
received a lot of negative comments and
dislikes from this music video on how women
are objectified as sexual objects to me.