To be very uncomfortable with 17 year old Billie Eilish's Bad Guy video?

[AbsentmindedWoman]

Am I being an old gimmer?

It makes me deeply uncomfortable because she's not legally an adult, and I'm pretty certain the production team around her are all adults, possibly with the exception of an intern or two. Most of the men you can see in the video are.

It feels very exploitative. I don't know much about this singer, but a quick google shows she is open about mental health issues, so possibly quite vulnerable in a way, and then she's singing about bruises on her knees and rough sex, seducing dads (who are obviously going to be adult men!) and she's only 17 years old.

I'll be honest, I would have thought in 2019 this wouldn't be legal until the singer is 18 - or at least frowned upon by the industry as not acceptable? Not that it is magically better when someone turns 18 but the whole attitude seems very dated?

She doesn't come across as 'an artist telling stories in song' with this particular subject matter - it all seems pretty contrived, I don't buy it.

Happy that others disagree though as ultimately, I'd be glad if you are right and I'm wrong - that means things aren't as bleak as I think!

Afraid I just don't believe it myself though.

@AbsentmindedWoman....Jesus christ get a grip FFS! Could you not find anything else to be professionally offended by today?
Having just watched the video for the first time I would be more horrified at her trying to drown a man with milk.......damn record execs!

Could we imagine a male artist singing a song about being given a bloody nose and bruised knees from his lover?

Yes, I think so . Though perhaps not if you stick to Coldplay.

Today's thread on the new Miley Cyrus track being a feminist anthem made me think of this and laugh. Now there's a girl who's been far more fucked up and over by the hollywood system than ms Eilish ever will be.

@floribunda18

Could you give me an example of a mainstream celebrated male pop star who has had lyrics of this nature?

Now there's a girl who's been far more fucked up and over by the hollywood system than ms Eilish ever will be.

Could you expand on this please?

Probably, but there are plenty of male singers, quite happy to be sexually explicit about what they want women to do, usually with the scantily clad women cavorting around in the video too.

Flo Rida - Whistle
"Show me your perfect pitch, you got it my banjo
Talented with your lips, like you blew out a candle
So amusing, now you can make a whistle with the music
Hope you ain't got no issue, you can do it
Give me the perfect pitch, ya never lose it."

Snoop Dog - I wanna make you sweat
"Girl I want to make you sweat
Sweat 'til you can't sweat no more
And if you cry out I'm gonna push it some more
Girl I want to make you sweat
Sweat 'til you can't sweat no more
And if you cry out I'm gonna push it
Push it push it some more"

Guns'n'Roses - Its so Easy
"Turn around bitch I got a use for you
Besides you ain't got nothin' better to do
And I'm bored"

Robin Thicke & Pharell - Blurred Lines
"I hate these blurred lines
I know you want it
I hate them lines
I know you want it
I hate them lines
I know you want it
But you're a good girl
The way you grab me
Must wanna get nasty
Go ahead, get at me
Shake around, get down, get up
Do it like it hurt, like it hurt
What you don't like work?
Everybody get up
Baby can you breathe? I got this from Jamaica
It always works for me, Dakota to Decatur, uh huh
No more pretending
Hey, hey, hey
'Cause now you winning
Hey, hey, hey
Here's our beginning
I always wanted a good girl"

Pitbull - Timber
"I have 'em like Miley Cyrus, clothes off
Twerking in their bras and thongs, timber
Face down, booty up, timber
That's the way we like to-What?-timber
I'm slicker than an oil spill
She say she won't, but I bet she will, timber"

Kanye West - I'm In It
"Uh black girl sippin' white wine
Put my fist in her like a civil rights sign
And grabbed it with a slight grind
And held it 'til the right time
Time to take it too far now"

Eminem - Kill You
"Shit you think I won't choke no whore
'Til the vocal chords don't work in her throat no more?
Shut up shit you're causing too much chaos
Bitch I'ma kill you!"

DD did a project about it for school. It was enlightening. So I'm all for Billie Eilish putting across a different perspective, not wearing a bra & thong to perform in and hopefully making a few girls sit up and think that they can have their own sex lives not defined by male expectations.

I find it to be a grotesque video. She is 17, which is of course legally old enough to have sex, but much of her audience is much younger pre-teens to mid-teens, and to have the lyrics and imagry of 'rough sex' I find very disturbing.

I also find it highly distrubing for her to pretend that a 17yo girl is the 'bad guy' in relationships with older men. This is a lie that girls tell themselves in these situations, to justify to themselves that they are not being taken advantage of, the they are not in an unequal relationship; and this is also the lie that men tell themselves in these situations, to justify to themselves that they're not doing anything wrong, in fact the men are the 'victims'. Obviously there are individual situations where given the personalities of the individuals this may be true, but in general a young girl is at a structural disadvantage in a relationship with an older man; one is mature and one isn't.

All in all, a grotesque song and an even more grotesque video. I truly despair for girls growing up today.

So I'm all for Billie Eilish putting across a different perspective, not wearing a bra & thong to perform in and hopefully making a few girls sit up and think that they can have their own sex lives not defined by male expectations.

Yes, I'm sure lyrics such as:

Bruises, on both my knees for you

So you're a tough guy, really like it rough guy

Might seduce your dad type

Will definitely make young girls think that

Also, have no idea why you have posted all those lyrics. I was looking for examples of male singers lyrics implying sexual violence being subjected on them by their partners. Not examples of lyrics about men being derogatory about women. I know there are countless examples of that.

I posted those lyrics because I wanted to Eaudear and because my 17 year old DD and her friends do talk about exactly those kinds of things.

I was telling her about this discussion, so she emailed me some of the lyrics from the project that she did last year about the music industry's portrayal of girls and women - so I thought I'd post them.

Yes, I agree those lyrics are disgusting. Men being derogatory about women through the medium of song is nothing new.

But I'm struggling to see how Billie Eilish's lyrics about bloody noses and 'Bruises, on my knees for you' is some kind of positive symbol of female empowerment, that's all.

I don't think people disagreeing with you are necessarily on the opposite side concerning porn. I don't think porn is fine. I also don't think Disney tropes are fine (you can tame a 'beast'; you are defined by your husband/prince; women need rescued, etc, etc)
I just think you have completely missed the point of the lyrics and that you're choosing to target/police/control a young woman in the music industry when I think there are much better targets for your ire.

Can someone please tell me the apparently oh so deep but also really obvious meaning of these lyrics then, because I don't get it?

Just because BE wears a hoody and has blue hair rather than strutting around in a leotard whilst twerking, does not automatically make her empowered and a positive role model.

I just don't like the linking of the imagery of sex with violence (and the imagery of a teenager with a bloody nose in the video), alongside this idea that a 17 year old is just such a 'bad girl temptress' who 'exploits' older men, because we have seen it a million times before.

Maybe it is just because it is a different perspective and a different way of portraying herself Eaudear. There aren't many young female pop icons who don't dress in a sexually enticing way and who sing about life looking down a different lens. Pink would be another one, who is good at portraying a different point of view.

I'd rather DD thought about some of this stuff than just followed the herd and blindly accepted that female pop stars should dress like hookers, have huge amounts of cosmetic enhancements and sing about love, lack of love, finding their other half, their one true love, being lost without a man and so on.

In an ideal world, I don't really want her seducing someone's Dad or getting into S&M, but I'm happy to discuss it with her and for her to think about it. Women should be able to express their wants, needs and desires - even if they are not always good, nice and sweet and this is part of that conversation - for me anyway.

Without outing myself, I was in a band when I was 16 and our songs were really dirty, and totally in the trope of teenage girls being strong and sexy and belittling older blokes who just want to fuck us. And none of us in the band was fucking an older bloke. In fact none of us was particularly fucking anyone. Really really wanted to be though. I personally as a teenage girl had a really dirty mind and a huge sexual
Imagination. Honestly our songs make “bad guy “ look pretty lame.

Totally not all teenage girls were like me, but many were/are. Just ask Caitlin Moran.

Interesting that you have referenced Pink there, who not only has dressed as a 'hooker' as you put it, but has actually starred in a music video about being one.

Incidentally, I really like Pink, and I do think she is a good role model for girls, because whilst being sexy, she is also an amazing singer, and an acrobat with an incredibly strong body. She has had songs about a range of things, including a lot of angst about her own life and loves, but as far as I can remember she hasn't sung about how great and empowering bruised knees and bloody noses are, or ever made herself out to be a teenage temptress who is exploiting helpless older guys. I could be wrong though.

I am reserving my judgement on Billie Eilish for now. As I said, it will take more than the fact she wears a hoodie and combats to convince me.

*She is 17, not 7. Were you not getting bruises on your knees with the slightly older bad boy at that age or were you still at Sunday school.

No I wasn't since you ask. I wasn't on my knees giving blow jobs to men at that age and they weren't hitting me as part of a sexual encounter either. I'm old enough to remember when a teenage boy asking out a teenage girl didn't expect a blow job. That song is about violence. When did sex become synonymous with violence for our young people?*

Nor was I.

Not on knees for any sexual activity of any kind - as I'd expect of a 17 year old girl, barely more than a child, still a school girl, studying for a levels.

When the fk did our standards become so low - and so damaging for young women.

Oh and the fact that you think there's nothing between "Sunday school" and sore knees from giving older boys blow jobs (or doing doggy) ... Says a lot.

Get a life, 17 year olds are allowed sex, they’re allowed to have fetishes and kinks as well (shocking I know!!!) she writes her songs with her 21 year old brother finneas, she’s not being exploited🙄

Can anyone think of a song by a male artist who is glamorising injuries inflicted on him by a woman after sex?

The epitome of the normalising if porn in music, I thought, was last week when the much-hyped Stormzy stood in front of thousands at Glastonbury and probably millions more on TV while repeating his this lyric -

“Then I finish with a facial just to top it off...”

Everyone in the audience seemed to lap it up. It’s as if you can get away with anything if you get the audience chanting f* Boris or whatever. Just slip in a few other choice terms like “slut”, between your allusions to youth gun crime - oh then the women can’t complain. They know their place. Homophobic or racist slurs or stage - no no no! Misogyny - oh why not? The girls love it because we’re all so woke and liberated! You could almost see him smirking as he delivered the line for the final time. Plus the song was No1!

'might seduce your dad type'

Read the lyric - she is playing on the boys MILF fantasy. Using the word MIGHT. Nowhere does she sing I'm going to shag your dad.

Any complaints about Fountains of Wayne song 'Stacys mom' where the video showed a boy and a girl MUCH younger than BE and the boy spying on Rachel whatsherface who was married to Rod Stewart?

At the end of the day I much prefer that my 13 year old DD likes Billie Eilish rather than vapid shite like Little Mix - we have conversations steming from BEs songs and I much doubt that any chat happens after anyone listening to Little Mix guff

Probably, but there are plenty of male singers, quite happy to be sexually explicit about what they want women to do, usually with the scantily clad women cavorting around in the video too.

Never violent or demeaning toward them though.

Here’s the full chorus, masterpiece that it is. Sing along kids..,

My bruddas don't dab, we just Vossi bop
I tell your girl to link me at the coffee shop
Gettin' freaky in the sheets, we're takin' body shots
Then I finish with a facial just to top it off (ay)
My bruddas don't dab, we just Vossi bop
I tell your girl to link me at the coffee shop
Gettin' freaky in the sheets, we're takin' body shots
Then I finish with a facial just to top it off (ay)

Yes this gets repeated about 5 times with some other drivel in between and apparently this is “culture”. There’s a dance and all the little kids know it, along with the lyrics. He has a young girl dancing on stage with him before this song and everyone seemed delighted.

At the end of the day I much prefer that my 13 year old DD likes Billie Eilish rather than vapid shite like Little Mix - we have conversations steming from BEs songs and I much doubt that any chat happens after anyone listening to Little Mix guff

What kind of conversations do you have stemming from BE's music?

Little Mix recently did a song called 'Strip'. The video features a few pretty awesome women, including Kris Hallenga, who has Stage 4 breast cancer, had a mastectomy at 23 and founded the amazing CoppaFeel charity, and Nimco Ali, who founded a charity to help end FGM.

But I guess that's just not as 'edgy' as Billie Eilish and her bruised knees is it, so not worth discussing with your daughter.

The Glastonbury crowd probably denounce Boris Johnson as a misogynist but lap up Stormzy.

No doubt someone will come along and tell me how much they’re turned on by facials though.