With lines like “I like you just the way you are, drunk as shit, dancing at the bar” and “can’t wait to get you home so I can do some damage, can’t wait to get you home and take advantage.” Brian McFadden’s banjo sampling “Just The Way You Are (Drunk At The Bar)” manages to offend women with the same flippancy that it does human ears.
Thankfully Melbourne scribe Clem Bastow imparted some damage of her own, publishing the definitive takedown of McFadden’s rape insinuating ear bleed today on her blog. Well worth a read, especially if normalizing date-rape is something you’re opposed to (hi, everyone).
Writes Clem: “We talk a lot about the idea of “rape culture” these days: what it is, what it isn’t, and why it is (or why it isn’t). Rape culture does not mean, to purloin the wisdom of Antoine Dodson, that they rapin’ errbody out there. Instead, it is a culture – of commentary, arts, music, popular thought – that normalises, excuses, trivialises and in some instances condones sexual violence, and it shuts down those who try to criticise it with cries of “political correctness gone mad”.”
Remember Brian, the pen is mightier than the rohypnol.
Listen to the song (for contextual reasons only) below…
Read: Some Days I Love My Job More Than Others – Oh My Darlin’
