Pharrell Williams Says 'Blurred Lines' Made Him Realize 'We Live In A Chauvinist Culture'

Six years later, Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke's 2013 hit "Blurred Lines" remains controversial. There's the prolonged lawsuit that noticed the pair having to pay the estate of Marvin Gaye for similarities to the artist's 1977 song "Got to Give It Up," there's that infamous video, and there's the matter of the song's actual words. Lyrics like "I know you want it" left a sour taste not just for their raunchiness yet for their proximity to date-rape culture.


In a new cover story with GQ, Pharrell describes how the song's reception opened up his grasp of masculinity. Not only did he learn how the unsettling the words are, although he also came to a new understanding of the culture that promotes songs like that one to exist in the opening place.


During the course of his interview — the center of GQ's New Masculinity distribute — he talks about his shift to understanding the new conversation surrounding masculinity. Any time asked about his awakening to the movement, he revealed that "Blurred Lines" was his moment. "I learn that there really are gentlemen who use that same language as soon as taking advantage of a woman, and also it is irrelevant that that's not my behavior," he mentioned. "Or the way I think about things. It just matters how it affects girls. And I was like, Got it. I get it. Cool. My mind opened up to what was actually being mentioned in the song and why it can should make someone feel."


"I realized that we stay in a chauvinist culture in our nation he continued. "Didn't learn that some of my songs catered to that. So that blew my mind."


Pharrell also gave his personalized meaning of masculinity as it relates to the current cultural conversation. "I think the truest definition of masculinity, it is the essence of you that is aware and respects that which isn't masculine," he mentioned. "If you ask me, as soon as we talk about masculinity, it's also very racial, this conversation. As the dominant force on this planet now is the older straight white male. And there's a particular portion of those them that senses a tanning effect. They sense a feminizing effect. They sense a nonbinary effect once it comes to gender."


Check out Pharrell's full GQ cover story in the link up above.