She can't act, she can't sing, but who cares - she walks like Rihanna.

[MardyBra]

I know it's only a bloody pop song, but it seems to be everywhere and is bugging the hell out of me. I can't even verbalise why - I suppose it's glorifying a woman who has a sexy walk, but isn't "much good for anything else".

I went to see Blondie in concert last night. They were brilliant, brought the house down. Now Debbie Harry, to boys in the late 70's like me, was a definite sex symbol. But I don't remember her posing endlessly with her tits and arse hanging out. There was some posing and pouting, but Hutchence and Jagger did that too, it is part of their act/stage show. Blondie were also part of the punk era. Lots of bands, some of them crap, some brilliant, many of them with female leads and musicians. And a lot of them with something to say politically.

I am afraid that young people today have to carry the can at least partly for the utter crap that the likes of Rihanna and her contemporaries put out. They are the ones financing this rubbish.

I seriously thought this song was a parody of something when I heard it. It's just so cringy and desperate. No subtlety...though I spose that's a good think. It's out-and-proud sexist crap.

There's a line in it 'and all the boys they crowd around a woo ooh ' and it just counjours up this vile/ hysterical image for me of a tone-deaf, dad-dancing, wiggly bummed woman surrounded by baying, slobbery men. Bleurgh.

Guess I'm not their target audience

Ohhh, I had a good old rant about this song the other day in the car. My poor dh got quite an earful despite agreeing with me.
Why is there so much emphasis on womens appearance? It drives me quite mad.

Don't be so quick to blame the youngsters. "Under My Thumb" has been around a very long time and the Rolling Stones (who are old enough to know better) still perform it.

Sss, Siamese cat of a girl. Under my thumb. She's the sweetest, hmmm, pet in the world. Etc etc.

Tei, I am not pretending that every piece of music prior to 1990 was perfect . But I think the Stones sang about wider issues as well.

Punk, this stuff gets pumped out because the target audience buys into it. It's a bit like the newspapers - by and large we get the press that we deserve. And whatever external factors there are - misogyny, rape culture, sexualisation of just about anything - at some point individuals have to take responsibility for where they spend their money. It isn't all one way.

NCG Listen to Paint it Black where Jagger is fighting his urges to rape possibly a lot worse lyrically than a group of boys thinking with their trousers too tight and thus starving their brains of oxygen.

Sausage - according to Wikipedia, Jagger says that the lyrics to Paint it Black are about a girl's funeral. Perhaps his referral to turning his head away from the girls is because they remind him of the dead girl?

Oh, you lot, I need a word with you.

For the last two sodding days I have been walking round singing this song. But not just the song, oh no, what I now have stuck in my head is RainbowFx's new improved version. You can make it scan if you ditch 'heterosexual'....

HAHAHAHAHA!

Sorry Amanda If it helps, DH is getting fed up of hearing me sing it as well. It doesn't help that it's an awful song and I hate it and everything it stands for, but it IS damn catchy...

Damn catchy. But not as catchy as "she can't sing, she can't dance, but who cares, she validates the male gaze"

Does anyone else suspect that it was originally "she looks like Rhianna", and changed to try and make it more user friendly to their (young!) audience? Just that walking does seem an odd thing to pick up on- and "looks" would have been an even worse lyric, so maybe someone tried to "improve" it?