Sometimes a song is so catchy that you don’t even realize or stop to think about what the lyrics actually mean. This seems to be the case for many songs by the surprisingly controversial pop artist, Meghan Trainor.
On March 16, Trainor released a video for her single “Dear Future Husband,” an upbeat tune in which Trainor lists the qualities that she would like in a future partner and discusses what she would give him in return.
As the video opened, I was hopeful that it would be harmless, despite its problematic-sounding title. The first thing I noticed: Trainor still seemed to be sticking with her tried-and-true music video color scheme, which involves absurd amounts of pastel.
As the beginning wore on, I could tell Trainor was trying to spread some sort of positive message in the mess of patterns and trimmed foliage that was this video. As she dances around in ’50s style garb she sings, “You got that 9 to 5, but, baby, so do I, so don’t be thinking I’ll be home and baking apple pies.” She’s then seen messing up a kitchen and setting an entire pie on fire.
The way Trainor judges her future husband and other men in the video perpetuates the idea that women are shallow and judgmental. At the beginning of the video, she sings about how she plans to have a job and her husband shouldn’t expect her to keep up with stereotypical wifely duties — yet only a minute later, she’s subjecting her date to the gender norms she was theoretically trying to avoid. That might be the most problematic aspect of the video: the perpetuation of gender norms and the overarching idea that an unmarried woman must constantly be thinking about her future husband and planning what he will do for her.
This small segment seemed like a good basis for the rest of the video. I hoped the “Dear Future Husband” title would be a window into a poignant piece with Trainor using a 1950s backdrop to convey how she feels about society’s jump to categorize women as housewives and assign them roles based off of this categorization. Unfortunately, I could not have been more wrong — about the message and the 1950s, seeing as later in the video, one of the girls is seen using a smartphone, so who knows what kind of strange alien time period this video is set in.
As the video progresses, Trainor meets a variety of suitors and demands a lot of things from them. However, the way Trainor judges these men is where the problems lie. At one point, Trainor watches as one hopeful hunk attempts to win her affection by playing a strength game at a carnival. When this gentleman isn’t quite strong enough to win the game, Trainor simply shakes her head no and a giant red “Fail” sign is stamped onto his face.
This isn’t the first time Trainor has attempted to send some sort of positive message and failed. Lest we forget her lyric in her “body-positive” anthem “All About That Bass” that went, “Yeah, my momma she told me don’t worry about your size, she says, boys, they like a little more booty to hold at night.”
Why does she think it’s healthy for any woman to base their ideas of their bodies off the approval of a man? What’s the point of singing a song about body positivity if you still preach that it’s all for the pleasure of men? What’s the point of any of this, Meghan? Why do all of your videos look like Easter eggs?
Maybe one day, Meghan Trainor will learn the error of her ways and release a song that actually succeeds in promoting a wholly positive message. In fact, maybe I’ll write a song about that and call it “Dear Future Meghan Trainor.”
