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Yelena Samar Professor Mullen Eng 350 Satire 15 December 2010 Research essay Use of satire in Pink’s “Stupid girls” Have you ever thought about what is being sung in the song? Did you think about the meaning of the text? Probably yes. So, you have noticed that some songs are about how two people love each other, others about how could he/she leave him/her. In thirds you do not even know what singer wants to say. But also of course you heard some songs where the singer mocks at something. Where he makes fun of people, their behavior, their habits.
Pink is not exception. Pink is relatively old singer. Her main music genre is diversified: alternative rock, pop-rock and r’n’b. She does not have specific genre. During her carrier she wrote a lot of songs and had a lot of video-clips. Some of her lyrics are motivating to stay strong after having hard time in life. But also she has a lot of songs where she mocks at human behavior, at the life style of some people. She shows it not only through her texts but also through her videos. One of the great examples is her song “Stupid girls”.
In this song and clip Pink exposes how different, and sometimes ridiculous, girls can be. Let’s look at her lyrics verse by verse First Verse: “Go to Fred Segal, you’ll find them there Laughing loud so all the little people stare Looking for a daddy, revolution pain (Drop a name)” Pink compares simple people to famous ones, by calling the first “little people”. But this is not what Pink thinks, this is what these models think about normal people: that they are “little”. Chicks are usually laugh really loud to get an attention to. They want to be in the center of everything.
In the third line they are looking for a daddy. It means that usually such kind of girls are trying to find rich man , with numerous bank accounts, who will spoil them with money, and when he will die all his property will be inherited by his young wife. “What happened to the dreams of a girl-president She’s dancing in the video next to 50 Cent” These two lines are one of the most sensual in the whole song. What happened to this girl, who dreamed about being president and make her country better? Or may be even she is just too right girl, she had excellent grades, she was leader among her peermates.
And now, influenced by the TV and Mass media, she left her desire to develop her leadership qualities. She learned how to dance, and now she is on one stage with 50 doing dirty moves. Is this what is condsidered today to be more valuable and more respectfull than being a president? Pink is not agreed with all of this. We can say that she is protesting against such actions. Being strong woman herself, she does not want young girls to follow this “chick” image. “They travel in packs of two or three With their itsy bitsy doggies and their teeny-weeny tees”
From the first line of this part of the verse I had a feeling that Pink is talking not about people but about things, stuff, just like books or gums. They are in pack. They always need to be with someone, and usually this “someone” is their best friend (just exact copy of them) or a small and cute pet. And they cannot travel without their integral part-their small “doggies”, who are dressed up not worse than their owner. “Where, oh where, have the smart people gone? Oh where, oh where could they be? ” Here it sounds even more serious, Pink is puzzled, how come there no more smart people. May be they hide away?
Or there no more of them left, cause all of them decided to follow these stupid stereotypes. Of course none of these two assumptions is totally true. But if we look closer we will see that nowadays we have more and more girls, and sometimes even a boys, who we can refer to the group “stupid”, as Pink called it. Now the chorus: “Baby if I act like that, that guy will call me back What a paparazzi girl, I don’t wanna be a stupid girl Baby if I act like that, flipping my blonde hair (back) Push up my bra like that, I don’t wanna be a stupid girl” In the chorus Pink tells us about how the majority of the girls get the attention from the guys.
She explains that if she will “flip her blonde hair back” and “push up her bra” guy will call her back. Pink even points out on the hair color. There is a stereotype that blond girls are light-headed so usually their main purpose is to be popular among guys, by any possible ways. And the main phrase there is “I don’t wanna be a stupid girl”. Pink calls girls who act like that stupid and she does not want to be like they. Verse 2. “Disease’s growing, it’s epidemic I’m scared that there ain’t a cure The world believes it and I’m going crazy I cannot take any more I’m so glad that I’ll never fit in
That will never be me” In this part of verse 2 Pink calls the common desire to follow stereotypes as a disease, it’s like epidemic. Because by every year more and more teenage girls choose the way of life which is imposed by the TV and it seems that there is no cure for it. She cannot stand that everyone is ok with this madness. But at the same time she is sure that she will never turn into these girls. She will never be like they are. And this fact makes her happy. “Outcasts and girls with ambition That’s what I wanna see (c’mon) Disasters all around World despaired Their only concern Will they (pooh) up my hair” Outcasts” – by this word Pink does not mean real outcast. She means ordinary people who we rejected by so-called higher class (glamour rich girls). Pink really misses these people, who enjoy their life. People who can find joy in everything, they do not care about money. Pink has her own aims, her own ambitions and she wants to see this in all others. Girls with ambitions, who can be future leaders, who can bring something useful and very important to society, they all disappear. The world is going down. There are a lot of global problems in the world, more important than saloons and appearance.
But glamour girls think only about how their hair will look like or, if the color of their shoes fits their bag. They are too selfish; they do not see anything further their nose. “Pretty will you *** me girl, Silly as a lucky girl Pull my head and suck it girl, Stupid girl! ” This is the most offensive part in the whole song. Here she includes the example how do guys talk to this kind of girls. They (boys) do not respect feminine part of the world who act like stupid blondes. We see that the attitude is really rude. Pink even uses obscene words to impress us more. Interlude: “Oh my god you guys,
I totally had more than 300 calories That was so not sexy, no Good one, can I borrow that? ” And in the last part of the song Pink mocks on the girls who are crazy about diets and calories. If we will talk about the technique of the satire, she uses parody here. She imitates the behavior of some girls by saying “ooops I ate 300 calories more than I had to. Now I am not sexy anymore”. As we saw in the lyrics there is not a lot of satire. The whole text is more likely complaining than satiric. Unlike the lyrics, video on this song was built with on a parody on different types of girls.
The whole video on this song is framed around young girl, 10-11 years old. She turns on the TV and immediately on her shoulders appear 2 angels: good angel on the right shoulder and bad angel on the left. This means that every time children of her age turn on TV they are facing so many choices whom to be in future. Some choices are right (they belong to good angel) and some of the choices are not (bad angel). The age of the girl in this video was not chosen accidentally, it was chosen on purpose, because at this age children can be influenced by anything very easy. So let’s see what is shown on this TV.
While switching the channels girl sees 13 different types of girls 13 different choices. And we can easily see that major part of these girls is not so smart. Here they are: 1. Teacher in strict etiquette school. 2. Glamour girl with small dog, who loves shopping 3. Mrs. President. 4. Dancer in rapper’s video. 5. “Solaris” girl 6. Strange girl who is making her breasts bigger by pulling a tab on her bra. 7. Girl on surgical table. 8. Regby girl. 9. Girl in fitness center. 10. Girl in night club. 11. Girl washing her car 12. Girl taking home-video 13. Too old Barbie. Let’s watch at each character closer. . Teacher in strict etiquette school. First thing we notice is that the picture is white and black, and teacher as well as students dressed up in a very conservative way. This choice of being teacher was suggested by the angel. It does not matter that nowadays people do not pay attention to girls who know etiquette and manners. You learn everything for yourself. 2. Next type is a glamour girl. This type of girls is very common in our everyday life. Usually they are “daddy’s girls” or young wives of rich husbands. They are usually are not so much educated because they think that they do not need it.
That’s why from the first frames we see that she crushes into glass door while entering pet shop. Later we see this girl driving a car. She is driving a car, putting lipstick on her lips, drinking coffee, talking on the phone and all these she is doing at the same time. We see some people who had been hit by her car. And what she does when she sees it? She just closes her eyes with a paper bag, screaming and putting her hands away from the steering wheel. This is not an appropriate behavior. 3. The third type of girl is Mrs. President. This is an image of the girl about whom Pink sings in her lyrics.
This is who she might be- strong, independent woman. Woman who has her goals and ambitions. Woman, who knows everything she wants. And what happened to her? She did not chose this way of life, little girl decided to be a dancer and now she is dancing in music videos. And this is our next type which is shown in the video. 4. Dancer near 50 cent. As I mentioned above, this is a girl who wanted to be a president in the future. But now after she was influenced by the TV, she became a music video dancer. 5. Fifth type of girl is, as I called, “solarium girl”. This type of girls is so concerned about their tan.
All the time they think that their skin is not brown enough. Here author of the lyrics shows that sometimes girls do not know limits in their attempts to look better. And this makes them not better but worth. 6. Strange girl, who makes her breast bigger by pulling a tab on her bra. The action is taking place in the bowling club. Pink came there with her boyfriend, or the boy she likes. And there they see a young girl, who takes the bowling ball and throws it on the track and she stroke. Happy with her small victory this girls began jumping. It would be ok, but this girl had a big breast as big as bowling balls.
Pink’s boy saw it and obviously he liked it. Pink became very angry and she pulled the tab under her hand and immediately her breast became 4 times bigger. Of course boy noticed these changes in his friend’s appearance and he was really impressed by it. But Pink was very happy-she got back his attention. 7. Girl on surgical table. Wise like “Solarium girl”, she is too concerned about her appearance. She is not satisfied with her body. She is even ready to let doctor cut her with scalpel. If we look at her body, almost every part of her body is going to be changed. Even on her underwear we can see the inscription “reconstruct”. . Next girl is shown by the angel. It is rugby girl. A girl who is buddy to boys. She feels comfortable with her friends-boys. This girl does not need any cosmetic, jewelry and high hills to feel the life. She enjoys her funny and unpredictable life. 9. Girl in fitness center. Pink came to fitness center. She is running on the toe cam. She is running alone, there is no instructor around to help her. And then she sees another girl in shorts and with big breast, which is also running on toe cam. Instructor came to her immediately. This fact made Pink upset and angry at the same time.
And while she was thinking about why life is so unfair, her pants were drugged into running track and she was left only in her underwear. On them we again see another inscription “say no to food”. This is irony here. In order to lose weight she bought underwear with this sign to remind her all the time to eat less. 10. Girl in night club. A very small episode is shows us situation in the night club. Pink in the image of party girl enters the rest room, where she sees the girl with a toothbrush in her hand. This girl used this toothbrush to help herself to throw up. Pink ask for this toothbrush and does the same.
As far as I know, when the girls get drunk in the club, and they do not feel good, they clean their stomach by using unnatural way, just like girl did in this episode. 11. Girl washing her car. This type was taken from the music videos. Usually cool rappers call blonde girls to be in their clips. Their main purpose is to attract attention to the video by using sexual tricks. Washing a car all in foam, that what they think is attractive for male audience. But as Pink through the whole video parodies different types of girls, this girl is not an exception. Pink in an image of this girl, tries to climb on the car.
And as a car is in soap and foam, she slips off it in not very beautiful way. 12. Girl taking home video. This episode, referred, as I think, to Paris Hilton, whose videos very very popular in youtube. 13. Too old Barbie. The last episode, which closes the whole video, shows us the possible way some of these “stupid” girls will look like in the future. They have their pink car, pink tracksuit their favorite light pink lipstick, but look it does not fit them at all. Yes, many years ago, when this woman was 18-25 years old, she looked perfect in these clothes. But now when she is old, and, probably, has her grandchildren, this looks ugly.
With this small girl with remote control in her hand, we looked through all 13 types which were presented in this video. Now there is a time for girl to choose: to be a glamour chick or just enjoy the life and be ordinarily unique child. She looked on the Barbie on her table, then on the football ball, and she chose the second choice. She decided to go outside and to play with her friends. Angel won. From the literary point of view, we can say that in the video director used one of the satire techniques ??? parody. In small episodes Pink imitates different types of girls, sometimes with a little exaggeration.
For example, in episode with a girl in solarium. She thinks that the tanner she will be – the more popular and cool she would be. But the effect is not so good. She came out of the tanning machine and she was orange. But she was really satisfied with result. If we turn on TV, on every channel we will see that they propagandize beauty, glamour and etc. And major part of teenagers used to follow all these chicks. And in their attempts to copy the lifestyle of celebrities, teenagers usually ruin their future life. It seems to them that they can achieve everything easily just by beauty and smiling. But Pink does not agree with this theory.
She makes fun of all these stupids, who does not know anything, but that they want to look sexy and they need everything to be “perfect”. Pink’s song “stupid girls” really forces us to think about who we are and how d we behave. This video’s main purpose is to show that being beautiful and following fashion is of course good, but also you need to have something in your head. You need to be smart and intelligent. For my opinion I think that the idea of this video is very good. Parents should watch it and then think about what channel do their children watch right now. Resources: 1. http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=BR4yQFZK9YM 2.