Pink’s new song, “Stupid Girls”, takes on the celebrity, porn-influenced current culture of pop and some of the women who perpetuate it, branding them “stupid” and encouraging girls to aspire to more.

“What happened to the dreams of a girl president
She’s dancing in the video next to 50 Cent …
Where, oh where, have the smart people gone?
Oh where, oh where could they be?

“Baby if I act like that, that guy will call me back?
Baby if I act like that, flipping my blonde hair back?
Push up my bra like that…?

“Outcasts and girls with ambition
That’s what I wanna see

“I don’t wanna be a stupid girl”

According to this site, “Pink says her new video for “Stupid Girls” is meant to be taken as a lesson \x96 that young women should aspire to more than such pop-icon pastimes as shopping, clubbing and making suggestive TV commercials.”

“There’s a certain thing the world is being fed,” Pink said, “and my point is there should be a choice.”

The video shows her parodying various U.S. female stars such as Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, Mary-Kate Olsen and Lindsay Lohan, and encouraging a young girl to take up football instead of aspiring to be the “dumb blonde”.

The video is pretty jaw dropping in parts, particularly the sarcastic spoof of Jessica Simpson’s pouting, gurning, ridiculous, slipping-around-washing-a-car video for “These Boots Are Made for Walking”, and the portrayal of the desperation of the celebs in their bid for fame. Seen on the TV sandwiched between tracks like the Pussycat Dolls’s “Beep”, Beyonce’s “Check On It” or Black Eyed Peas “My Humps”, it does make these acts look pretty ridiculous.

However, it has to be said that many will find the “toothbrush down the throat” scene offensive and insensitive to sufferers of eating disorders.

Whilst some feminists may crticise Pink for attacking other women, you can’t blame her for expressing frustration at the pop culture which mandates that female artists (and by implication, young girls) must be constantly “sexy”, expose flesh, and act stupid to get ahead. Her lyrics,

“Disease’s growing, it’s epidemic
I’m scared that there ain’t a cure
The world believes it and I’m going crazy
I cannot take any more”

…are a pretty succint summary of Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West, aren’t they?!

Some pics from the video can be found on this site.

Posted by Catherine Redfern on 6 February 2006, at 11:11 PM