"Wild Ones": A Feminist Reading

So, I listen to pop music. There, I admit it! I've been listening to it since I was 13, back when Britney Spears was first becoming popular and *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys were all the rage. While Britney's lyrics weren't all that surprising then (or now), I feel like lyrics have gotten even more demeaning towards women. I'm just going to look at one song that's ridiculously popular on the radio these days: Flo Rida's "Wild Ones"


These are spoken by Flo himself:
"I like em untamed, don't tell me how pain"

This lyric is overwhelmingly negative and portrays a women's expression of her sexuality as threatening (Chris Brown, I'm looking at you) The untamed, wild woman needs to be tamed and the song concludes that later:


"I am a wild one
Break me in
Saddle me up and lets begin
I am a wild one
Tame me now
Running with wolves
And i'm on the prowl"


 When an animal is tamed (ie. breaking a horse), they are taught to be submissive and obedient, which is apparently the type of woman that is desired in the end. Sexual expression is just another phase in a woman's life before she is "tamed" by a man and under his control for the rest of her life. The sad thing is that a woman is singing these lyrics in a sultry, "come-hither" voice. Her "taming" becomes eroticized and encourages the sexual and emotional domination of women by men.


-Jenny