Boycott the Grammys : No Awards for Rape Promoters!

On January 26, 2014 the 56^th Grammy Awards will be held in Los Angeles and screened worldwide. The event celebrates the best and brightest of the music industry. The Recording Academy pride themselves in giving out “The recording industry’s most prestigious award, the GRAMMY…to honor excellence in the recording arts and sciences.”

This year, the song ‘Blurred Lines’ has been nominated for three awards: Record of the Year; Best Pop/Duo Group Performance; Best Pop Vocal Album. This song has sexual content that is different to other songs of a similar genre. It plummets the industry into a new era of tolerating and promoting a rape culture in a way never seen before. We can only hope that this occurs out of ignorance and a lack of understanding rather than a widespread and deliberate intention to ignore the reality of what rape is, how it is perpetrated, and the impact that it has on victims. Perhaps an explanation will help.

1. The impact.

Rape is devastating, life altering, destructive, and tragic. It leaves a wound that might physically appear to be repaired but the scar on the psyche can never be erased. We survive, we find ways to continue to live in the world and protect ourselves, but never, ever, again do we have the same sense of safety we had before it happened. The experience is burned into the consciousness of those who experience it. It never leaves the mind and body of the victim. Once it happens there is no going back, everything is changed.

2. The use of violence.

Rape is inherently violent. It involves the use of force. Some form of manipulation, coercion, intimidation, drugs, and violence are used. This serves to terrorize victims. There are two reasons rapists use coercion and/or violence:

1. Because the use of force in a sexual context is precisely what gives the rapist sexual gratification – it is the violence that turns them on.
2. Because the perpetrator is willing to use force to get what they want. They may (or may not) begin with the intention of using coercion/violence but, in the end, their need is paramount and, regardless of the harm being caused, the rapist takes what he wants.

In both cases, the rapist KNOWS, precisely, when they are using force. They know there is a line they have crossed. For victims, the combination of the use of force and the feelings of vulnerability inherent in intimate contact has an impact far beyond almost any other type of physical assault.

3. The victim blaming.

In rape there is no invitation. It is the rapist who says “You did something to bring it on yourself.” They justify their actions with the idea that the victims deserved – and even asked for/wanted – what they got. They attempt to make the violence invisible by arguing that, in some way, it was the victim who made them do what they did. They use lies, including the idea that the line was blurred/the messages ‘mixed’, to justify their actions. They deny that any harm is done or, when harm is evident, they play it down. Rape is about what rapists want. Whether it’s to assuage their conscience, or convince the courts and avoid consequence, both will, universally, blame the victims.

Let’s have a look at the lyrics of Blurred Lines in this context.

Blurred Lines Lyric Excerpts

The use of violence

I’M GON’ TAKE A GOOD GIRL

SMACK THAT ASS

PULL YOUR HAIR…

CAN YOU BREATHE…

TEAR YOUR ASS IN TWO…

WHAT, YOU DON’T LIKE WORK…

NOT…LET YOU PASS BY ME

I HATE THEM LINES

The rapist takes what he wants

NOT MANY WOMEN CAN REFUSE THIS PIMPIN’

CAN’T LET IT GET PAST ME

WHAT DO THEY MAKE DREAMS FOR

I FEEL SO LUCKY

TALK ABOUT GETTING BLASTED

I HAD A BITCH…I ALWAYS WANTED A GOOD GIRL

Victim blaming (she deserves/asks for the violence)

I KNOW YOU WANT IT…

NO MORE PRETENDING…

YOU’RE AN ANIMAL…

TO DOMESTICATE YOU…

IT’S IN YOUR NATURE…

LET ME LIBERATE YOU…

THAT LAST GUY…IS TOO SQUARE FOR YOU*

THAT MAN IS NOT YOUR MAKER*
YOU WANNA HUG ME
THE WAY YOU GRAB ME
MUST WANNA GET NASTY
SWAG ON, EVEN WHEN YOU DRESS CASUAL
(*i.e. the non-violent man)

The impact

No lyrics on this, of course. Framing violence as something the victim wants is a way of denying that force was used and that harm has been done.

These lyrics are a striking revelation of the psyche of a rapist. It is almost a complete confession. The artists know this and (as admitted on talk shows) set out to create something so controversial that it would ‘go viral’. They wanted to cross the line and catapult a song and video that mocks and minimizes rape into mainstream music.

What is it that makes this acceptable? Who would dare to do this with other forms of violence? For example, who would dare to write and release a song that promotes the horror of a terrorist attack is in this way? We have become a society in which media such as this is not only acceptable but rewarded with astounding levels of publicity and profit. Controversy is considered a legitimate marketing ploy and popular media thrives on it. But not all controversial subjects are allowed. Just certain types and those that involve sexual violence (against young women, in particular) are, increasingly considered fair game.

The issue is not about censorship or ‘banning’ certain material. It is about what those in the industry choose to create, promote, and (in the case of the Grammy Awards) celebrate. It is about not feeding and fuelling the kind of art and creativity that contributes to a culture in which women, children and some men are denied a basic sense of sexual integrity and safety. Millions are made vulnerable, whether in private or in public, day or night, and no matter how they try to say ‘no’.

• Is the pain of women, men and boys who experience rape of so little consequence?
• Are we no longer considered human in any way at all?
• Are we only a thing to be stripped and penetrated; bought and sold; on the new slave-traders platform that the screen and the internet are rapidly becoming?
• Must masculinity be reduced to this level of depravity?
• Is no one in the industry, the government, or the populace responsible for stopping it?

Or is it that, like the rape victim, we just don’t know what to do when faced with such overwhelming force and power?

TAKE ACTION!

Join in a collective, respectful, non-violent, protest and make it clear that…

THE PROMOTION OF RAPE IN MAINSTREAM MEDIA

VIA SONGS LIKE ‘BLURRED LINES’

WILL NOT BE TOLERATED

IN THE CIVIL SOCIETY WE STRIVE TO BE.

Boycott the Grammys!

BLURRED LINES MOCKS, TRIVIALIZES AND PROMOTES RAPE.

It is nominated for three Grammy awards and the artists are scheduled to perform.

-DON’T watch the show-

-Choose another channel or, better still, turn your television off-

-DON’T watch re-runs or internet clips-

Advertising revenues and ratings are what drive the media.

Collectively we have the power to take this away from them.

Draw the line!

• RAPE INVOLVES COERCION AND VIOLENCE

• IT IS DEVASTATING TO VICTIMS

• PROMOTION OF RAPE CULTURE HARMS EVERYONE

Organize locally and nationally

Spread the word using this information or create your own statement

Links to the organizers and distributors of the Grammy Awards: http://www.grammy.org/grammy-foundation/who-we-are : The Grammy Foundation and The Recording Academy, 3030 Olympic Blvd. Santa Monica, CA 90404, Tel: 310.392.3777. Fax: 310.392.2188 http://www.cbscorporation.com/contact.php: CBS Headquarters; 51 W. 52nd Street, New York, NY 10019-6188. Tel:1-212-975-4321

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En complément : les paroles d’une parodie féministe