A Little (gender role) Game
that makes some people suffer
Thank you for joining me for this Sunday Special commentary.
As with most everything, there are many ways to interpret things. Comments and questions are welcome. Please be respectful of others’ opinions if they should differ from yours.
For Japanese students, vocabulary words in bold are provided in Japanese below.
Today, I’d like to introduce a song that one of my students introduced to me this week. It’s from 2019 and is called Little Game by a group called Benny. The song deals with gender roles and stereotypes. The official video is quite clear (link below), but I will discuss the lyrics as they might be a bit challenging for language learners.
The Song
(435 words)
The song begins with an observation about how society continually tries to put people into very narrow gender roles relentlessly confine into living up to gender roles. Play us like pawns means to use someone for their own advantage. Society does not encourage us to think for ourselves - having absent minds. Don’t you think it’s funny how we’re all delinquent kids? In other words, if you don’t conform, you don’t fit in.
In many societies, people must conform by the clothes they wear Throw on a jersey and no one gets hurt (for males) or by their behavior Just bat your eyes (for females). In other words, if a man wears so-called “masculine” clothes, others might not bully him. If a woman acts cute and submissive, she will be accepted.
The second verse talks about the effects that these “common sense” narrow gender roles have on people. You’re raising suicidals - when people are bullied to an extreme and have nowhere else to turn, it may lead to suicide. Sometimes, our friends and family send us messages, verbal or non-verbal that criticize they way we look, dress, or act because we don’t conform to their sense of values. With your predeterminded titles like, “A mess, distressed, I am unimpressed”: you aren’t doing enough to live up to my expectations. You’re excess: we don’t really need you, A dress is all you’ll ever be: because girls are only good to look pretty.
Gender roles impose, control, and deceive progressive times. Even if some people want to break free of the traditional roles that are imposed on them, it can be very difficult to do so. There are many things that people do in order to be accepted among their friends, family, and community. For example, we pretend to have a lot of wealth so that others will like us: We feign opulence just to get by. We tend to smile and act like nothing is wrong: Put on false confidence just to feel alive/Baby it’s easy to fake a smile when you’ve been doing it for a while.
All of this takes a toll on people who suffer abuse from others just because they don’t want to conform.
If YOU don’t want to conform, that’s okay! There are many, many other people who feel the way you do. Try to find a good friend or someone you can trust. Tell them how you feel. There are also hotlines you can call if you need someone to talk to.
You ARE all right just the way you are. You are beautiful just the way you are.
VOCABULARY
relentlessly 容赦なく
deliquent 滞納者
conform 従う
jersey ジャージー
bat your eyes 目をぱちぱちさせる
bully 苛める
masculine 男性的
submissive 柔和
verbal 言葉 (non-verbal 非言語)
sense of values 価値観
predetermined 既定
Impose 強いる
feign 見せかける
opulence 富裕
takes a toll 悪影響を与える
suffer abuse 虐待を受ける
With lyrics:
Official Video: