BORN TO MAKE MEN HAPPY

I tried to defend our pop scene to my 17 year-old cousin in India. But she started to wear me down. "It's not that bad. We've got a few good songs here and there," I argued. "Yeah, but the videos that are on your countdowns are filled with a bunch of whores." "Huh?" "We get the U.S. Total Request Live every week and you never vote for the good videos. Actually, the videos you choose degrade women. And you call yourself the leaders of the industrial world...." And now that I think about it, I have to concur:

Exhibit A: "That Don't Impress Me Much" by Shania Twain

Ok, so the song itself tries to assert her "woman in me" mantra and it's not too bad. But a girl wearing a leopard print coat and hood in the desert? What was she thinking? The video's plot's pretty simple: Shania looks hot (I mean literally--she's gotta be overheated in that animal skin), she rejects like five different hitchhikers for no apparent reason (including a white boy who looks uncomfortable in his sheik outfit), and she ends the video without a ride, lonely and overdressed in the desert. The lyrics of the song wax poetic about needing a man who isn't just about his looks; he's gotta be able "to keep her warm in the middle of the night." But how exactly is she evaluating these hitchhikers? On their looks, right? She doesn't exactly speak to them. She just takes a quick glance, evaluates their hair, and then shakes her head and walks off in her annoying catsuit. (But to prove she can make it on her own, there's an interlude of her turning a giant wheel on an irrigation pipe. Shania, you're the bomb.)

Exhibit B: "Born to Make You Happy" by Britney Spears

Little girls love to say that Britney Spears is "omigod, like the coolest role model." The song and video, "Born to Make You Happy," will shut those little girls up. Literally! The message of the song is: shut up and wait for your man because you were "born to make him happy." The video has Britney Spears pining after a guy who doesn't really like her, but she's convinced that he's the only one for her: "I'd do anything, I'd give you my world/I'd wait forever, to be your girl/Just call my name and I'll be there/ Just to show you how much I care." In the end, Britney gets her man and true to form, "makes him happy."