Portrayals of Women in Pop Songs

I'm having a problem with pop music. I listen to it for Dance Marathon purposes and it is quite often nice to have in the background while driving, but lately I have been disturbed by lyrics. Sure, there are the obviously disturbing songs that have thinly veiled metaphors on topics I don't want blasting at me from subwoofers, but seemingly innocuous ones are troubling me as well. The two examples I would like to discuss are "You Don't Know You're Beautiful" by One Direction and "Just the Way You Are" by Bruno Mars (not actually sure if I got those titles right, but you know what I'm talking about).

These two songs are about a woman who the artist thinks is beautiful but she herself does not outwardly indicate that she shares this knowledge. This perspective places all the value that the subject woman has to the singer on her physical appearance. Let's be real: when you first hear these songs the initial reaction is "awww" but then you think about it and realize that it's actually kind of creepy. I mean, they're not talking about an average person. The subject is, since we're talking about One Direction, a person who looks like Taylor Swift. The listener wants it to be less superficial, but superficial is all it is. It doesn't help that the tunes are so catchy. 

It is just so irksome to have such a dichotomy in pop culture. There are women like Scarlett Johansson, who calls out interviewers for asking the female actor the "rabbit food question" while her male counterparts are asked existential questions about their characters; Anne Hathaway, who emphasizes that she lost weight to play a character who looks like she's dying as a way to de-romanticize being deathly thin; and Jennifer Lawrence, who is the goofiest, realest, smart, and talented actor in young Hollywood. These true role models are juxtaposed with these male ideals of an insecure, submissive, waiting for her knight in shining armor type of girl. Society is changing, but not fast enough when these two ideas about women are in the forefront of how Americans think.

I guess I stop liking songs when their lyrics are bad or portray a bad social message. I don't think that's a bad thing, and I believe that more people should think about what their music is actually saying before deciding on a new favorite song.

Today is awesome because I was entertained by the current students of my alma mater, saw my friends and former classmates from said alma mater, and had an awesome time at Tae Kwon Do.