Top 10 Music Videos That Didn't Age Well

Pink
We give Pink a big thumbs up for what she was trying to do with her 2006 hit “Stupid Girls.” The song is meant to be a feminist anthem designed to encourage girls to be who they are and praise intelligence over superficial beauty. Unfortunately, the way it goes about doing this is by demeaning and looking down on “stupid girls,” which according to the video is anyone from a spoiled celeb to a pretty girl at the gym. Pink doesn’t want females to feel judged in this misogynistic society - but that’s pretty much what’s happening in this video. Then there’s the cringingly-insensitive portrayal of eating disorders that just isn’t funny these days.

Aerosmith
We’d like to think we’ve come a long way since 1987 in our understanding and sensitivity towards the transgender community. And as such we can hopefully all agree that, as catchy as this rock song is, “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” just wouldn’t fly today. Sure, it gets a laugh when it plays over Robin Williams dressed up as Mrs. Doubtfire. However, as a writer at Vox pointed out, the lyrics fall back on a false narrative that “trans women intentionally deceive men or are ‘in disguise,’ [and] that they are unattractive or repulsive.” Although it feels much more out of place today, Aerosmith’s lead guitarist Joe Perry was actually worried at the time that the song might offend the gay community.

Van Halen
Unfortunately, there’s nothing too out of the ordinary about a music video featuring scantily clad women being gawked at and sexualized. Thankfully, that demeaning gaze is usually coming from adults. In Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” however, it’s a bunch of grade school kids cheering and leering as their phys ed and chemistry teachers rip off their clothes and catwalk on their desks like it’s a raunchy Victoria’s Secret fashion show. Teachers already don’t get the proper respect they deserve for the important and difficult job they do, and portraying them merely as sex objects sure doesn’t help.

Britney Spears
In case you didn’t pick up on the fact that the song is about Britney Spears being in love with a criminal, the video for “Criminal” uses glossy and sexy imagery to make the point abundantly clear. Sure, we all know the trope about girls falling for bad boys, but does this video really need to enforce that stereotype with sex and guns and make it look appealing? As Sarah Dean of the Huff Post UK said “‘If having a blonde, leather-clad superstar brandishing a gun at a shop owner's face isn't glamourising violence, I'm not sure what is.’”

Duran Duran
Duran Duran wrote “Girls on Film” about the sexualization of fashion models and “the dark side of the glitz and glamour.” However, that’s probably not what most people are thinking about as they watch gorgeous women sumo wrestle, give massages and strut around in skimpy outfits while the band plays on a stage. While the exploitation is hard to ignore, it should be mentioned the band didn’t plan for the video to be seen by kids on MTV. In fact, they filmed the video before MTV even went on the air, with the expectation that it would only be played in nightclubs.

Maroon 5
Adam Levine spends the whole “Misery” video being slapped around, beaten up, sexually assaulted and almost killed by his gorgeous girlfriend. Model Anne Vyalitsyna was also Levine’s actual girlfriend at the time, but that hardly makes it better. While the abuse and stylized violence is mostly played for fun and laughs, that’s also kind of the problem. If the roles were reversed and Levine was the aggressor, would it be funny or acceptable? Yes, role reversals can be used intelligently to comment on social and sexual issues. But vapid, lol-violence isn’t an example of that.

3OH!3
3OH!3’s video for “Don’t Trust Me” begins with a title card stating that only two men (and all the women) have survived a global virus. This was back in 2008, whereas these days any reference to a worldwide virus hits us all a little closer to home. Band member Nathaniel Motte has talked about how the video was just supposed to be raw and strange. And it is. However, along with the fun and energetic strangeness, the lyrics are quite misogynistic. We haven’t heard the word “Ho” used that much since we met Santa. Then there’s the part where they shake their butts at the camera while telling a girl to be quiet and “Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips.” Cringe!

Die Antwoord
There’s a whole lot that’s disturbing about the music video for Die Antwoord’s 2014 track “Ugly Boy.” There’s the glamorization of guns, the bloody violence and the typical female sexualization. But none of that’s the reason it’s here. For that we can start with the blackface. Yes, they had scenes of a guy dancing, and smiling, in blackface. Although, to be fair, that was probably just as wrong back in 2014 as it is today. One thing that wasn’t though, was Marilyn Manson. While the antichrist superstar has always courted controversy, the 2021 allegations of psychological and sexual abuse were of a new level. So, seeing him standing tall next to a pretty woman in the video comes loaded with that extra baggage.

Avril Lavigne
Cultural appropriation is a major buzzword these days, and we’re pretty sure it was back in 2014 also. Well, if it was, it wasn’t a word that was buzzing around Avril Lavigne or the team involved with the production of her “Hello Kitty” music video. From the crew of Japanese backup dancers to the scenes shot in a sushi restaurant, this J-Pop inspired track wasn’t subtle about its influence. And while critics didn’t like the song, the video received just as much criticism at the time, with Slant Magazine writing that it took “cultural mis-appropriation to cringe-inducing levels.”

The Vapors
The good news is that, contrary to popular belief, “Turning Japanese” wasn’t written about the squinting face people make in the climactic moment of… well, you know. The song is actually about a man who has lost his girlfriend and feels like he’s going crazy - turning into something different. The bad news is that the music video is still a cringe-worthy exposé on cultural appropriation. From the subservient geisha to the intercutting of lead singer David Fenton and a Samurai - both swinging a sword. The lyrics might be a metaphor, but unfortunately they went literal for the music video.