An older man sitting at a cafe, a young woman walking to the beach. He remarks on her beauty, says he loves her. Is this romance or an elaborate cat call?
This is a piece I did at the Dudes Against Violence Against Women: Because DUH! benefit for Breakthrough, which is an organization that works to change the culture to make violence against women unacceptable. Since analyzing music and lyrics is a big part of my act I decided to take a look at some popular songs to see what kind of messages, assumptions, and biases they might contain. This led me to reconsider one of my favorite songs, the bossa nova standard The Girl From Ipanema.
And no, I don’t think it’s an overtly sexist song; I think the humor comes from taking a second look at things we accept at face value and realizing perspective can change a lot from person to person and situation to situation.
Enjoy!
