He probably should have just left it out. If he had not started his music video with such a bold claim about beauty("Beauty Has No Expiration Date"), he wouldn’t have landed in this category. Pharrell falls short, assuming this was his goal. John Legend does an arguably better job of embracing women in his music video. Baby steps, I suppose? Still….questionable. However, this still presents the problem that “men need to liberate women from the evils of the world” - in this case, rape culture and media. Ok so here’s my verdict: Men, like Pharrell and John Legend, creating music videos that are supposed to “celebrate women” have good intentions. In comparative creepiness, Michael totally beats Pharrell. Is this Pharrell’s woman-friendly response? The ladies are wearing what seems to be like their everyday clothes and who just happened to come hang out with this superstar. Rolling Stone notes that it could be sort of tongue-in-cheek reference to George Michael’s “Too Funky”, which is all about Michael filming scantily-clad models moving about provocatively. Is this supposed to be a quasi-realisitic music video and not some sort of male fantasy? Is his wife okay with this? It feels a little like exploitation, like “Oh, here are all these beautiful women dancing for me while I film… here let me get in on the action, not by dancing like they are doing, but by having them dance on me! Nice!” At the end, they all do hug like old friends, so it's possible it's all just playful. Which is fine, because women embracing their sexuality is literally what I’m all about. Okay, but then all of these women start sexy dancing on Pharrell.
They pal around like friends, instead of having the girl that features dance below or on her knees next to the dude (like in maybe every music video ever). Then Miley Cyrus comes! She sings alongside Pharrell and shows off her goofy dance moves with him (no twerking this time). Maybe even add some more guys! Everyone needs to be dancing!! Let’s stop fetishizing women dancing!! Cool. It would have been cool to see him chilling on the floor with all of these women and having him bust the same moves they are on the dance floor. Him holding the camera brings the super obvious analogy to the male gaze. I really liked the idea that all of these ladies were hanging out, dancing, and having a blast together, but Pharrell’s camera-handling gets like kinda weird. Except Pharrell is there? With a Super 8 camera? He occasionally films them, or is otherwise sitting in a chair, watching. So if Pharrell was going for accepting and showcasing all sorts of diverse beauty, he could definitely benefitted from a wider range of women.īasically, the women each get a turn dancing while the others sit around on the floor, middle school sleepover style.
Fun fact: the majority (if not all) the women in this video are models. I instantly prepared myself for another John Legend-type “embrace the beauty of all women-style music video.” Though the video does include a variety of women of color, the ages and sizes don’t span as wide as they do for Legend’s “You & I” video. The video starts out with a declaration in bright red letters: “Beauty Has No Expiration Date”.
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