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Date Rape Anthem: Last week’s Date Rape Anthem, Ke$ha‘s “Blah Blah Blah,” has inspired some interesting discussion about what happens when women take on the traditionally male anthem. Bitch Magazine says that Ke$ha’s music “turns the traditional male-chauvinist, sexist attitude on its head to deploy the same tactics for her own purposes: being the life of the party.” But can female rapiness ever be empowering? Let’s examine the case of Paradiso Girls‘ “Patron Tequila,” a song that commenter riese hails as the “rapy-est song ever!” Surprise twist: It’s sung by ladies!
Relevant Lyrics:
Hey girl, where’s your drink?
We can all get fucked up tonight
Hey girl, I got bud
We can all get fucked up tonight
By the end of the night
I’m a have you drunk and throwing up
By the end of the night
I’m a have you so fucked up!
Why It’s So Rapey: Serious role reversal, right? Lyrics like “hey girl, where’s your drink?” and “I’m a have you drunk and throwing up” are generally reserved for such Date Rape Jam hall-of-famers as Jamie Foxx and T Pain. But the gender reversal is strangely incomplete: In the song, the Girls aren’t pushing the booze on the male objects of their affection, but rather on other girls. It’s almost as if the record execs took a Foxx B-side, fed it to five ladies, and didn’t bother to change the pronouns to conform with the Paradiso Girls’ (presumably) heterosexual image. The result? An “empowering” role-reversal, whereby the Paradiso Girls get girls so drunk they vomit—-just like the boys do!
Perhaps the music video for the track can explain this interesting new breed of girl power. A-ha: In the video, our five lovely Paradiso Girls are not pushing other women to drink, vomit, and sex it up by their own free will. Their date-rapiness is, in fact, controlled by a random guy’s magic sex headphones. Role-reversal: It’s still all about male fantasy. That’s right, folks! We’ve finally discovered the elusive Super Meta Date Rape Anthem, in which a set of voodoo headphones forces women to assume the characteristics of date rapists, against their will! Observe:
Yeah. No surprise here: While our friend Ke$ha at least writes her own songs, the music of the Paradiso Girls is the product of some decidedly male influences. The Girls are a pop supergroup designed by Pussycat Girls mogul Jimmy Iovine. And in case you couldn’t smoke him out by the trademark crunkness: Lil Jon had a hand in writing this track.