Parents may want to consider a short list of points when evaluating their daughters\u2019 music listening habits, because they are naive to the insidious nature of their favourite artists\u2019 songs. The songs of the young singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo, who won New Artist of the Year at the 2021 American Music Awards<\/a>, offer some good examples.<\/p>\n Music critics can sometimes be complacent or even superficial in their analysis of popular music. An example of this \u2014 and this is just one of many \u2014 can be found in a review of Olivia Rodrigo\u2019s single \u201cDeja Vu\u201d<\/a>. I was very surprised the reviewer would suggest there was nostalgia behind the line:<\/p>\n \u201cYou play her piano, but she doesn\u2019t know\/That I was the one who taught you Billy Joel.\u201d<\/p>\n If you ask girls, or consult the online Urban Dictionary<\/a>, you\u2019ll learn that \u201cplaying piano\u201d refers to female masturbation. \u201cBilly Joel\u201d is a discreet way of talking about fellatio by using the artist\u2019s initials, BJ.<\/p>\n The song\u2019s video<\/a>, corresponds to the male gaze often represented by the camera in Hollywood films. The camera observes Rodrigo as a voyeur would peer at women\u2019s bodies through a mirror, screen or hole in a wall, feeding a patriarchal conception of the world.<\/p>\n The term \u201cmale gaze\u201d was coined by film critic Laura Mulvey in her essay \u201cVisual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,\u201d published in 1975<\/a>, a cinematographic practice that she denounced.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/736x99_Banner.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBeware of complacent reviews<\/h2>\n
Beware of that \u2018d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu\u2019 air of Hollywood cinema<\/h2>\n