Chipmunk Rock and Roll?
I randomly came across a song from the cartoon show “The Chipmunks”, it’s called “The Girls of Rock and Roll”. I looked up the lyrics and right there in the third verse is the ‘chipettes’ singing the line, “ You’re living in a man’s world, They tell us.” Even in a children’s TV show women in rock and roll are undermined! Its basically harmless in a little kiddies show but it really shows that rock and roll is stereotyped as a ‘mans world’.
Sources:
http://www.lyricsdownload.com/alvin-the-chipmunks-girls-of-rock-and-roll-lyrics.html
Lauren Duncan
kass3120 said,
May 21, 2008 at 12:52 am
I think it’s really funny that they would reinforce such a stereotype.
But even our blog saying “the girls of rock ‘n’ roll”, aren’t we also undermining them by having to point them out as different? Rather than having a blog about the “people” in rock ‘n’ roll.
But in the Chipmunks song, I suppose they are attempting (in their own falsetto way) to empower young women with the inclusion of the Chipettes by singing after the line mentioned in the post
“But we ain’t gonna buy it. The thing’s they’re tryin’ to sell, Us, now. Cause we’re the girls of rock and roll (Oooo!)”
(clearly the Oooo! is very important)
Although they don’t feature as prominently in the song as I would like, typically the song plays to the hierarchical structure of men dominating rock, at least it’s an improvement that their are women (or at least female chipmunks) in the band in teh first place.
-kass