Michaelson Breaks a Million with "Girls Chase Boys"
The video, which pays homage to Robert Palmer’s 80’s hit “Simply Irresistible”, features several feminized men sporting red lipstick and pink tops, imposed behind a low-cut blazer and eyeglass wearing Michaelson. While Palmer’s video features all women, Michaelson’s has a mixture of both men and women, blurring the lines of gender unlike most pop songs today.
While she could have gone with an atypical pretty pop video and played follow-the-leader to the top, Michaelson stuck to her beliefs and made a video dedicated to an issue seen daily in pop music videos: gender stereotyping. While some artists can make viewers go sour over social issues in their music videos, Michaelson has elegantly merged the subtle meanings under layers of make-up and juxtapositioning.
Each individual in the video is presented to the audience with identical make-up and clothing, marking no difference between girls chasing boys, or boys chasing girls. While Michaelson’s video parallels with Palmer’s in many parts, it is a completely different ballpark because of the way the dancers are presented. These tiny tweaks and little gestures completely change the meaning of gender and the video, making Michaelson’s video a beautiful homage not only to Palmer, but also to the way we rationalize and see gender in the 2000’s.
“Girls Chase Boys” has simple cuts and simple dancing, making the message loud and clear. Michaelson’s headmistress look is sexy, yet empowering. While some may say she is only furthering the stereotyping by flaunting a low-cut blazer and sexy teacher glasses, one could argue that this is exactly what Michaelson wanted. You are supposed to see her as this sexpot figure; she is exactly what society thinks. But in opposition to the female and male dancers looking all-similar in the back, the message becomes louder and fitting. With each “boys chase girls chase boys” there is a blending of which direction the chasing goes, making everyone an equal being and quite capable of being equally chased. To Michaelson, gender doesn’t matter because we’re all capable of that broken feeling and we’re all capable of overcoming it.
Michaelson has hit the nail on the head with fleshing open a conversation about the things we have chosen to stigmatize. We are in a new age of identification and diluting gender-related stereotypes through artists like Michaelson is refreshing. The “Girls Chase Boys” music video is needed. It the fuel and spark the music video world needs to burn the stereotyping to the ground. After months of Miley antics between Thicke lines, it's pleasant to see a pop artist release a single with much meaning and subsequently less nudity.
“Let’s not make it harder than it has to be,” Michaelson sings with a glazed look toward the camera at one point in the video. And that’s the truth: it shouldn’t be this hard. “Girls Chase Boys” is exactly the type of conversation the pop video industry has been ignoring. And what we all need now is to wait and see if the fire spreads. Also, to see what other societally relevant little euphemisms Michaelson has concocted for her newest album release.