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Michael Jackson's attitude towards women in his music

Zizzistar said:
on a more lighter note, MJ also showed sympathy and genuine fascination for the "prostitute" figure. he dedicated a whole semi love song to such a woman (Streetwalker) and his postmortem released songs like Slave to the Rhythm shows he clearly empathizes with them.
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Slave wasn't written by Michael.
 
jasmine.uddin said:
I can see that being a valid argument if MJ had used the stereotype sparsely, maybe limited to one or two songs. But it becomes problematic when he repeatedly uses the negative view of the same stereotype. There's a compound effect which can be considered indicative of a larger attitude to women within his music. I'm sure he even has a song named Streetwalker.

While I agree MJ has other songs which may balance out this view, for me personally, it doesn't negate that the stereotype is there. And I can see how it can be interpreted as having misogynistic undertones, irrespective of whether I agree with this.
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We will definitely have to agree to disagree on this then, as this view seems very blinkered.
 
jasmine.uddin said:
It's not just the songs, he even represented women as prostitutes. There really was no need for that type of representation for songs like WII and arguably TWYMMF.
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"Who Is It" is just a song about being cheated on. Basic stuff, although I guess the video didn't have to go as far as making the woman an escort.

"The Way You Make Me Feel" wasn't about prostitutes at all. The lyrics don't suggest anything of the sort, and in the video, Tatiana and her friends (one of whom was LaToya) are just regular girls being cat-called by bum men. Just because you see an attractive woman down the street doesn't mean she's a streetwalker. If Tatiana was playing a hooker, that would defeat the whole purpose of MJ trying to woo her; she's not attractive if she's just a hooker.

jasmine.uddin said:
I think some fans are uncomfortable with the word 'misogynistic', but he did appear to be peddling certain stereotypes, and notably his role in many of these types of songs appeared to be the unsuspecting casualty.
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He was far from the only artist to do it, though. It's just show business. Rappers degrade women all the time.
 
We've had this discussion before on this forum.

I feel a bit uncomfortable when watching the short film of The Way You Make Me Feel today. That's a weird sensation, because I used to love it. But there are certain shots that feel a bit too aggressive now. Also, the notion that Michael can make a girl love him by pestering her, is really weird. In the eighties I had no problem with it, but now I do. I learned something, apparently.

I think Michael did the same thing. Look at the way he performed the song during the HIStory Tour: still chasing the girl, but way more playful. It's really different in tone.
 
jasmine.uddin said:
I'm sure he even has a song named Streetwalker.
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It's a love song, there's nothing negative about women or prostitutes in that song.

jasmine.uddin said:
I want to clarify that the issue isn't that he writes about prostitutes, it's that he repeatedly writes about such women using negative stereotypes which sympathizes the male perspective without holding them in any way responsible for the scenarios he is critiquing the woman of.
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Repeatedly? You can probably count them on one hand. Also, have we considered the possibility that the male in the song might not actually be the one responsible? In real life, Michael was falsely accused of being the father of the children of women he never even slept with, and that's what the song Billie Jean is about, not about a man refusing to take responsibility for the child he did father. I think the line "Cause the lie becomes the truth" makes it pretty obvious that Billie Jean is lying about him being the father. And the line "Billie Jean is not my lover" makes it pretty clear that this was NOT a girl he was sleeping with. When he says "She called me to her room," there is then nothing to indicate that he did go to her room in response. Sounds to me like it's just a girl he danced with, she wanted to sleep with him, but he did not, then she made up lies about sleeping with him and him being the father of her child.

Same thing with Dirty Diana. Where is the proof in that song that he actually slept with her? Michael tells his girlfriend to unlock the door, meaning that he intends to go home that night. Then Diana tells his girlfriend, "He's not coming back because he's sleeping with me," but when did Michael actually agree to sleep with her? The whole song is Michael saying 'I will not sleep with you no matter how hard you try'. So who was telling the truth about whether or not he ended up sleeping with her, Michael or Diana? If Diana lied to Michael's girlfriend about Michael sleeping with her, then wouldn't Michael be justified in portraying her as the bad guy and himself as the innocent victim?

In the song Dangerous, the woman again tells Michael's girlfriend she slept with him. But was that the truth, had she actually slept with him at that point in time? In the verse just before the bridge, Michael says, "You and your manipulation, you hurt my baby", then the bridge seems to indicate that she actually managed to seduce him, "And then it happened, she touched me,..." but that was AFTER she already told his girlfriend he slept with her. Meaning that she lied to his girlfriend in order to cause her to break up with him so she could take him for herself. I think it's fair then for Michael to portray her negatively and hold her responsible for destroying his relationship with his girlfriend.
 
Hess said:
I think this thread is a bit weird...

Times change and the way men and women are portrayed/talked about change too. Had MJ still been alive, I guess he would write the lyrics different now compared to how he did in th 80's.

I must say I see nothing rude or sexistic or anything degrading about women in MJ's songs.
On the contrary I think MJ often portrayed great love/relationship towards women.
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I agree, The songs and Lyrics were very (of the time) I think there was an element of the true and popular saying of the 80's - Sex sells. FYI - Cliff Richard is another religious pop star who was attacked and hounded about his love life. I think its just a fact that not everyone is turned on by sex.
 
Piek said:
We've had this discussion before on this forum.

I feel a bit uncomfortable when watching the short film of The Way You Make Me Feel today. That's a weird sensation, because I used to love it. But there are certain shots that feel a bit too aggressive now. Also, the notion that Michael can make a girl love him by pestering her, is really weird. In the eighties I had no problem with it, but now I do. I learned something, apparently.

I think Michael did the same thing. Look at the way he performed the song during the HIStory Tour: still chasing the girl, but way more playful. It's really different in tone.
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Piek, I can agree, I had the same experience watching - the short film of The Way You Make Me Feel. The outlook then was very different from today.
 
Michael probably wrote these songs mentioned before based on HIS experiences.

He was Michael Jackson and he had a lot of money, fame, charisma and charm. I'm pretty sure that women with bad intentions approached him a million times. That doesn't make him a misogynist but simply someone that wasn't willing to deal with BS. Women can be mean (I'm a woman too) so why not make songs about it? Men also suffer and have feelings especially someone like Michael that is clear he was sentisitive and had a good heart.
 
I'm not sure that solely blaming the woman is conducive to discussions concerning problematic representations of women.

I fully appreciate that representations of women are influenced by the contexts of the time. And for those who cannot separate the art from the artist, and the story from the storyteller, I also fully appreciate that MJs own unhealthy upbringing may have influenced his views for such songs, and his comments about women in the RS book/tapes are very telling.

But irrespective of the context, I also fully appreciate that there are some problematic thematic representations of women within some of MJs music. Whether this be explicit references to prostitution such as WII (a song which had no need for such a reference), whether it's the borderline harassment depicted in TWYMMF, whether it be a love song titled 'Streetwalker', or whether it's lyrics solely criticising the woman's behaviour.

You can choose to overlook it for contextual reasons, but I don't think it can be objectively argued that it doesn't exist at all. For me personally, I choose not to ignore the problematic representations of women (or any group) wherever I encounter it.
 
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jasmine.uddin said:
whether it be a love song titled 'Streetwalker'
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Why do you find this problematic? Why couldn't a man fall in love with a woman just because she's a prostitute? I think it's actually nice that Michael saw prostitutes as human beings who are worth being loved, isn't it?

jasmine.uddin said:
I'm not sure that solely blaming the woman is conducive to discussions concerning problematic representations of women.
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Well it depends if the woman IS solely to blame in one specific story.
 
jasmine.uddin said:
Whether this be explicit references to prostitution such as WII (a song which had no need for such a reference), whether it's the borderline harassment depicted in TWYMMF, whether it be a love song titled 'Streetwalker', or whether it's lyrics solely criticising the woman's behaviour.
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Roxanne by The Police is about a falling in love with a prostitute and it's a more well known song than Streetwalker or Who Is It.

Also, some people use Every Breath You Take as a wedding song or dedication, when it's technically about stalking. So not everybody gets the same meanings out of songs, or they don't pay much attention to the lyrics.
 
Indeed , he didnt seems to trust women so much... and he grows up by having bad bad experiences (groopies and prostitute in night clubs when he was a child), so probably, he had really a trauma about women...
 
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