WST 3015
Professor Nina Perez
March 2, 2010
Behind the Music
“Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood
"Before He Cheats" tells the story of a woman taking revenge on her potentially unfaithful boyfriend. She imagines him hanging out and flirting with a "bleach-blond" girl shooting pool, buying her a drink, dancing, and hoping to be "getting lucky" with her. As a result, she does several law-breaking actions including vandalizing his customized four-wheel drive vehicle by scratching its side with a key, carving her name into its leather seats, smashing the headlights with a Louisville Slugger baseball bat and slashing all four tires. She hopes that this will make him "think before he cheats" again.
There is a double standard against men and women because women cheat, they just don’t get caught. This video is a form of economic violence at that falls under threats/intimidation because it is the destruction of property or valuables. At micro and meso levels, women can be violent as well as men (Kirk, Margo Okazawa-Rey "Violence Against Women”).The song has drawn criticism for its glorification of violence as a justified response to the infidelity suffered by the subject of the song. Someone vandalizing their boyfriend's car would not simply get away with it and come out on top, as the woman in the song seems to think/suggest she will (especially given that she slashes her name into the seats, making it easy for any investigator to determine a prime suspect). As stated in the book Fight Like a Girl: How to be a Fearless Feminist, Rape will not end when women stop wearing short skirts; it will end when men stop overpowering and violating women (Seely 201).Unfortunately in some cases the man doesn't walk away at all because the estranged wife or girlfriend feels that the cheater is better off dead. Revenge is a sweet thing but killing someone over infidelity or veen going to jail is not worth it...there are enoguh fish in the sea!
Lyrics: http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/underwood-carrie/before-he-cheats-16593.html
Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaSy8yy-mr8
Work Cited
Seely, Megan. Fight Like a Girl:How to Be a Fearless Feminist. New York and London: New York UP, 2007. 201. Print.
Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. "Violence Against Women." Women's Lives Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 258-58. Print.
I agree with you, I don't know why the media keeps pushing the idea that violence is an okay response to being hurt or that violence is a good response to violence. In the song I did for this blog, "Date Rape" by Sublime, I really hate it that the big JOKE at the end of the song is that the man is in jail and gets "butt-raped by a large inmate" like somehow that makes it ok that he raped a woman? Like it's even now? Ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteI actually enjoyed the beat of this song then I started listening to the lyrics and now my mind is changed. Although, I never really considered it to be a sexist song until I took this class. I very much enjoy your view point that revenge is not worth it. Also, your right in stating that how can men move on when women are so obsessed with teaching them a lesson?
ReplyDeleteI cannot agree more with the justification of violence in this song. If it was a man singing about destroying a woman's car this is would be a completely different song. I also wrote about this song and focused more on how I thought Carrie was trying to show some type of independence for women wronged, or at least that is the way I took it. I bet most of the time when people this to this song they do not even realize what it is saying.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds as thought she is not sure if he was actually unfaithful or not, so why is she smashing his car. Also, even if he is unfaithful, is it really as bad as our dating culture would like us to believe? Even thought it may be unethical because it is a form of lying and secretive, is it not true that he could love her and still love someone else at the same time. The paranoia of dating culture is very destructive.
ReplyDeleteI would imagine that she is using smashing his car as a scare tactic maybe?I'm just saying...
ReplyDelete