Emily
MikeI’m only about a year behind the times on this, but, when I was in my health club last week, some TVs were showing the video for the Silversun Pickups’ “Substitution” song. It’s the video where the group is playing and, on the floor in front of them are eight short-skirted, low-cut, high-heel-wearing women playing a game of musical chairs. Almost immediately, I wondered “Isn’t this offensive?”
But a google search didn’t seem to uncover much concern about the video. I don’t really understand. Obviously, there are tons of music videos that are sexist, but that doesn’t stop the occasional outrage about particular ones. (Or is it only political videos like M.I.A.’s “Born Free” or Katy Perry wearing a “cleavage-baring” dress on Sesame Street that bring on the outrage?)
The Silversun Pickups’ video seems pretty similar to me to the old Robert Palmer “Addicted to Love” video. The attire is similar, they all have on their “game faces,” they have no relation to the lyrics. But “Addicted to Love” was the object of much outrage about sexism — and “Substitution” apparently is not.
Can anyone tell me why there was criticism of Robert Palmer but not of the Silversun Pickups? What’s the difference?
Filed under: Pop Culture, Sex Tagged: | Robert Palmer, Silversun Pickups
i think here’s the difference: silver sun pickups is from the late 2000s
robert palmer is old
I don’t know the answer to your question, except perhaps that sexism and objectification of women in media, with music videos being a particularly blatant perpetrator, has become so accepted in the years since the Robert Palmer video.
What I also am curious about is why the Silversun Pickups bother calling themselves “indie” when their music video is so clearly, and purposely, mainstream? Has the original intent of the classification “indie” been so perverted that for a band to pass muster, it need only dress its lead singer in flannel and a hipster beard?