Students to BU: Cancel Robin Thicke Show

'Blurred Lines' celebrates sexual violence, group says
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 24, 2014 9:33 AM CST
Students to BU: Cancel Robin Thicke Show
Robin Thicke performing as part of the Power 96.1's Jingle Ball 2013 at Philips Arena on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2013, in Atlanta.   (Photo by Robb D. Cohen/Invision/AP)

Robin Thicke may have had the "song of the summer," but at least a few Boston University students (and nearly 2,000 people who've signed their petition) think his "Blurred Lines" is also sexist—and they don't want him performing on campus. Thicke has a concert scheduled at the school on March 4, but in the petition started by the Humanists of Boston University, students label him a misogynist whose hit single "celebrates having sex with women against their will" and ask that the show be canceled.

"Lyrics such as, 'I know you want it,' explicitly use non-consensual language," the petition reads. Says the group's president, "There's even a vignette you can find online where rape victims write down things their rapists said to them before or during the act of rape and they are astonishingly similar to the lyrics used." So far it doesn't look like the show will be canceled, so the group has planned a protest outside the concert venue, MyFox Boston reports. On BU Today, writer Alicia Cameron agrees with the petition, theorizing that Thicke "wrote a song with assault innuendo without thinking about it" because "as a male of privilege ... he doesn’t have to think about it." (More Robin Thicke stories.)

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