So Maroon 5 released a new video a couple of days ago, “Animals,” and there are already feminist critiques of it out there, talking about its glamorizing of stalking, as well as the general message portraying men as uncontrollable animals that just have to “get” women, no matter what. What I want to throw into the discussion is this thought: were they intentionally trying to create a music video that might as well come with every copy of The Sexual Politics of Meat, just to really drive the point home?
For those of you not familiar with Carol J. Adams’ work, she basically talks about how the culture around meat-eating has a strong connection to sexism and to sexual violence against women. A few examples include our association of meat-eating with manliness, our tendency to compare women to animals like bunnies, the sexualization of meat and nonhuman animals, and the way in which we dissect and use women’s and animals’ bodies for our enjoyment.
Seriously, this video is so on point in portraying everything that’s messed up about how society views women and animals, that it almost seems like a parody (don’t worry though, I assure you it’s not). He’s a manly man who needs to “hunt you down and eat you alive” (literally that is the chorus! What.), just like he does with his “regular” cow and pig meat. That’s what men do, they hunt weaker animals, women included.
The video, which is actually very painful to watch, portrays Levine as a weird guy who works at a butcher shop, and stalks a girl he sees there. Earlier in the video we see Levine hanging out with some animal corpses in what looks like a serial killer’s kill room but I guess is actually just the back of the butcher shop, while the lady he’s stalking walks in the street, undresses seductively in front of the mirror, and sleeps as he creeps into her room. Then they even provide us with a lovely sex scene, where we jump from shots of them passionately doing it to shots of Levine fondling those animals corpses from before (which are perfectly sequenced with his fondling of the lady’s various body parts). Later I guess having sex while thinking about animal corpses becomes not manly enough, so they even go as far as making out in a rain of thick blood. Truly inspiring.
It is seriously a textbook example of how consuming women’s and animals’ bodies is what it’s all about. How meat is sexy, how women are meaty, how it’s pretty much all the same to them, and how sexism and patriarchy go hand in hand with speciesism (the ideology which sees nonhuman animals as inferior to humans).
The reason it’s important to discuss this really gross and creepy aspect of the video, and not just the stalking part, is because it is crucial to understand that as women, our subordination and oppression is tied to that of animals. It’s not a coincidence that they show Levine hanging out with dead animals and not, say, with cupcakes or spinach. There is a very specific meaning and ideology in our culture around animal meat, and that ideology is very close to the one that makes people think that “Baby, I’m preying on you tonight” and “Maybe you think that you can hide, I can smell your scent from miles” are manifestations of a romantic and sexy situation.
So yeah, Maroon 5: women and animals were not made for your amusement and pleasure, we’re not body parts for you to consume, and we don’t enjoy being abused (whether through stalking like the lady or through butchering like the animals). Go find something else to grope.
Fucking disturbing. As in, I’m fucking disturbed.
Another great example of this is Rasputina’s “Hunter’s Kiss” with lyrics such as, “my life is not mine, like a dog or a wife.”
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Aisling Hilsdottir if it is disturbing….you may want to consider eliminating animals from your menu…they are both the same….people use animals and slaughter them with no thought that they wanted to live, and can feel fear, terror, suffering, and know they are going to be killed as they go through the slaughter house line.
thanks for posting.
It’s true… when i was just about to go Vegan and to change my perspective on life – but still not understanding what was happening to me – i wrote a song called “The Butcher”, which was about a guy who was a butcher and chased women so he could have sex with them and then kill them.. it was all about the Sexual Politics of Meat,
Not even sure how to comment here. A complete psycho. This is not normal. it’s a sickness. Dude has serious issues. I have a feeling we will see this guy in the news in the future but it won’t be music related. Sad really.
SOLID OBECTIFICATION. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpgTC9MDx1o
Great blog, thank you!
what the hell this is world
Is bad and getting worst ! God flooded the world and this time would be fire to destroyed the mankind!
i have been watching the gradual slide back into the portrayal of woman as object for years now. I never believed that men changed how they viewed women, women are at fault too for allowing themselves to be portrayed in magazines as having no ither dimension than their looks and sexuality.
We are at the thin end of the wedge now, Maroon five are just the twisted visual manifestation of how men really feel about us.
[…] of a woman’s body paired with dismembered animal body parts. I also recommend checking out this article discussing the blatant sexism and speciesism in this […]
Sucks that their song “Moves Like Jagger” is one of my favorites.