This music video is a couple years old, but I am TOTALLY obsessed with it. It makes you see the world in a completely different ways and think about something that's constantly under the spotlight: Gender roles. I present to you Little Game by Benny. What's even crazier is that he was 15 when he made this video. I certainly didn't realize some of these things when I was that young. So here are some completely amazing points he brings up:
1. The assumption we all fit into our "biological" sex.
In the video: All the boys are dressed in blue and the girls are dressed in pink.
In real life: How many applications simply have the option of "male" and "female," or if they're more progressive, sometimes you'll find an "other" or "decline to answer." But how much is lumped into this "other" category? Other is such a broad term and assumes that any non-binary gender fits into one category (completely false).
2. Boys are expected to be "jocks" or perfect gentlemen and girls are expected to be delicate dancers, or the stereotypical 1950s housewife.
In the video: The boys are dressed as athletes or in very prim and proper clothing and the girls are dressed in very refined, conservative clothing or in a leotard, tutu and pink tights.
In real life: We divide so much of our clothing into "men's" and "women's" when sometimes the difference can be as minuscule as what side of a jacket the buttons or zipper is on. Don't even get me started on the pink tax.
3. Certain things are "boys' issues" and others are "girls' issues":
In the video: Action figures are for boys, not dolls and bullying the character to make him more like a stereotypical guy. Girls should be more concerned about her waist size and should dumb herself down for a guy.
In real life: There is still a stigma with the term "feminism" or "feminist" as it being something for extremist women. And things like the wage gap or the glass ceiling is a women's issue. Yet there are people like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who has said things like, “Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in.” There is also Emma Watson (most known for her role as Hermione in the "Harry Potter" series), who has said, "Girls should never be afraid to be smart."
In real life: Then if you look at the hyper-masculinization of boys from men on the covers of magazines with chiseled bodies or people saying that "real men don't cry" or in women's magazines with articles on X number of things every woman wants in a man. If you have more of an interest in this check out the film and project "The Mask You Live In" (available on Netflix).
4. Those who don't conform have something "wrong" with them.
In the video: The boys and girls who don't conform to their assigned gender roles are hidden away in a desolate place and made to look as though they are in shock or guilty of something.
In real life: There is so much stigma for people who go against the grain in society. While Eleanor Roosevelt may have said, "well-behaved women rarely make history," I'm going to expand on that and say well-behaved people rarely make history. While we can look back on history and point out that people protesting for something were just in doing so, it rarely looks that way in the present. People who question the government on a local, state or national level or people who just question the way things are, are often treated as outsiders and as though something is "wrong" with them for not accepting the status quo and moving along.
Those are just points made by the scenes in the video, let's take a deeper look at the lyrics.
5. The first verse:
We are told how to live by the authorities around us. That can be a good thing when learning from moral rights and wrongs in the sense of laws. But we should not be told how to live our lives or what to do just because we are born a certain gender because sometimes the person may identify as a different gender. Benny also brings up the point that we consider all kids delinquents at one point or another because of the fact that they don't do as authority figures want them to do.
6. The chorus:
We can't speak up against this perpetuated system of gender roles simply for the reason that we shouldn't. Then it also looks at how boys play sports (Throw on a jersey), and girls are dainty and superficial (just bat your eyes).
7. The second verse:
This verse is loaded so I'm going to break it down line by line.
"Bounded all thoughts and corrected common sense" We are told what to think and if these thoughts can be ingrained in us they are now common sense. After all if you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.
You're raising suicidals with your predetermined titlesThe binary gender system is outdated and if we keep using an outdated system to define a non-binary system then we are unknowingly teaching people that if you don't fit into the binary that something is wrong with you. There is a reason that suicide rates are significantly higher in people outside the binary spectrum.
Like "a mess, distressed, I am unimpressed, you're excess A dress is all you'll ever be." This outdated system just doesn't work anymore but we're determined to use it anyways. And a girl will never be seen for more than her outward appearance.
Gender roles impose control and
Welcome to the land of the broken mindsThis comes in the video when the girl decides to open to book rather than use it for proper etiquette and posture. So there must be something wrong with her mind because she wants to think for herself right?
8. The third verse:
This comes in at the part of the video where we see those who don't conform are placed somewhere awful and it was because they didn't pretend to fit in just to survive. At first it is difficult to pretend to be something that you're not but eventually just putting on a smile and being what others want becomes second nature.
So some of my huge takeaways from this video are that it's more important to be true to who you are, rather than who others want you to be. Find what you love and do it, regardless of what society says or who society says its for.
