Because women’s “liberation,” as a rule, is really not all that “old” or “time-honored,” the gender, unlike the male one, has had to deal with a far more schizophrenic evolution tied to identity, self-perception, self-confidence and emotions in general. Emotions that can vacillate between wanting to be “taken seriously” and seen on an “equal” level with men (which feels unlikely women will ever be “allowed” to) and wanting to, quite frankly, just fuck around. An umbrella term that can allude to everything from not working/being taken care of by a man to lounging in a silk robe all day in between posing for selfies to not wanting to be drafted if it ever came down to it.
“Girls Just Want to Have Fun”—specifically Cyndi Lauper’s more well-known version (we’ll get to the original later)—addresses this phenomenon in many regards. Starting with the strange fact that it’s viewed as a feminist anthem despite highlighting a certain “inherent frivolity” to women. What’s more, Lauper’s addition of one lyric in particular to make it “her own” does little to dispel the notion that women are usually kept under a man’s thumb unless willing to “risk it all” (read: financial security) for some ephemeral “fun.” That lyric being, “Some boys take a beautiful girl/And hide her away from the rest of the world/I want to be the one to walk in the sun/Oh girls, they want to have fun.” This mantra being Lauper’s answer to “boys will be boys,” the catch-all term to dismiss any “untoward” male behavior (which covers the gamut of dick-centric effrontery—from not understanding that everything they say is offensive and wrong to more glaring misdeeds like, say, rape).
Lauper herself has touted, “[The song] was very blatantly feminist… It doesn’t mean that girls just want to fuck [side note: the original song was about girls wanting to fuck the pain/night away]. It just means that girls want to have the same damn experience that any man could have.” In theory… But like Jane (Bette Davis) reminding Blanche (Joan Crawford) in case she forgot, “But ya are, Blanche, ya are in that chair!,” it feels the unspoken thing here is, “But ya won’t, Cyndi, ya won’t have the same experience!” Not the same as a man. Not just because the sexist behavior toward women still abounds, but because women trying to be “like” men has been a key aspect of the problem in “equality” for so long. And even a brand-new feminist anthem like Florence + the Machine’s “King” seeks to ultimately limit “female liberation” with patriarchal language that still finds women attempting to “outdo” men by “becoming” or “being like” them.
And maybe some women ought to be reminded that their great “power” is actually in embracing their femininity rather than trying to stifle it by making the attempt to emulate men and their behavior. In what now feels like a piece of millennial ephemera, “The Betches” wrote a book in 2014 called Nice Is Just A Place in France, during which they say many horrendous things (especially within the context of the present climate) that embody the “at war” nature of women in terms of wanting to laze about and have a good time (you know, like Anna Delvey). One pearl from their “playbook” is, “Women can’t win by accommodating people; we need to be decisive and know what we want and achieve it in a smart way, while putting forth minimal effort for optimal results.” Translation: girls just want to have fun.
In the same book, Betty Friedan’s words are wielded to falsely elucidate that men aren’t responsible for women’s constant reversion to a time-warp iteration of their gender, citing, “Men are not the enemy, but the fellow victims. The real enemy is women’s denigration of themselves.” But women only denigrate themselves precisely because they’re still conditioned to believe that “pleasing” men is paramount to their financial well-being. Furthermore, even Weird Al had to denigrate Lauper’s song via his parody, “Girls Just Want to Have Lunch.” Because no one is more frivolous than the group known as the ladies who lunch.
Other rather bold—even if “semi-jocular”—assertions made in the “guide” include the reminder, “As females, we’ve accepted that, for the vast majority of history, society’s list of expectations for our gender read as such: reproduce. Check baby for penis. If none, reproduce again. Repeat.” With this being a woman’s “key purpose” for so long, it’s no wonder this long-standing indoctrination rears its crowning head so often to make women doubt everything about who they are. If what they’re doing, “career-wise,” is worthy. Enter The Betches to say, “As a woman, you have the special privilege of not needing to work as hard as men do—in the general sense—unless you want to. The truth is that men pretty much gave up their right to demand we do anything, if you consider that for most of human existence, society ran pretty smoothly without our involvement. We don’t have to be the breadwinning gender if we don’t want to be, and we are fucking happy about that.” This little tidbit, in the wrong misogynistic hands, could obviously be used as an argument for why women should go straight back into the kitchen. But that’s not really what’s being said, so much as spotlighting the notion that women are at war with their fun-loving, “layabout” persona from centuries past and the phony baloney “girlboss” one of the present.
The Betches continue, “It’s perfectly okay to let men believe they are superior beings without whom civilization would crumble. Regardless of whether you agree, this ego boost is exactly what they need to do things for you (e.g., pay for dinner, overachieve on work projects, propose marriage). When it comes to most things, it’s okay to let other people, especially men, do things that you are too lazy to do for yourself. This leaves you with more time and options to choose what you want to do. That’s the freedom of being female.” The freedom, in short, to use constantly being underestimated as one’s superpower to get others to do what they want for them. Those who see the brilliance in that understand that there is more deftness in doing “nothing” than constantly trying to appear as though doing “something” (i.e., working at a soul-crushing job).
As for the accompanying and still well-remembered video for “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” Edd Griles, who directed, would also go on to collaborate on other Lauper “narratives,” including “Time After Time,” “She Bop” and “Hole in My Heart” before downgrading to the likes of Huey Lewis and the News and, later, Eddie Murphy’s “Party All the Time.” Nothing would ever compare to what he did with “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”—perhaps a further testament to how a woman bolsters a man, not the other way around. Commencing with Lauper dancing down a quintessential NYC street in the early hours of the morning as her mother (played by Lauper’s real-life matriarch) stirs some dubious mixture in a bowl, the contrast between daughter and mother is meant to clearly demarcate how previous generations of women settled on this banal life for the sake of being a hausfrau that doesn’t have to go out into the actual world. That job is reserved for “Daddy dear.” Played in this video by Lou “Captain” Albano, he wags his finger disapprovingly at her while Cyndi shrugs, “My father yells, ‘What you gonna do with your life?'” She then pins him to the wall unexpectedly and replies, “Oh Daddy dear, you know you’re still number one/But girls, they wanna have fun,” blatantly defying the man in her life that every girl is initially trained to “obey.”
Alas, for a “feminist anthem,” the video does little to paint women as anything more than vacuous twits who like to engage in idle chit-chat on the phone, one crosscut to another friend’s room tellingly featuring a picture of Marilyn Monroe on the wall. As the ultimate symbol, in men’s eyes, of sexual objectification, the point here is to repurpose Marilyn as the rebellious icon that she secretly was (complete with saying “fuck you” to the studio and starting her own production company). Yet the effect gets lost in how brief the shot is—and that the girl who’s on the phone with Cyndi is wearing curlers as she yaks it up. Another scene meant to highlight how divergent this version of the song is from its original is the one in which The Hunchback of Notre Dame plays on TV in the background where Cyndi is lounging (as women do). Cued to the line about a boy trying to hide a beautiful girl from the world. Damn, that’s mad rude/unwarranted shade on Quasimodo, who has problems of his own that accentuate how ugly men (if they don’t have money) can have just as many issues functioning in society as ugly women.
Maybe there is a certain appropriateness to the fact that the original version of the song was recorded by a man in 1979. Namely, Robert Hazard—who sings the vocals in an intonation that echoes Elvis Costello belting, “What’s so funny ‘bout peace, love and understanding?” Because it is still “in a man’s image” that women can’t help but measuring their worth. It’s something so primordially ingrained (thanks, in large part, to the misogynistic masterwork that is the Bible) within the gender, that shaking it entirely might be all but impossible.
And that’s where the “agreement” to “evolve” into a housewife came in. With snarky 1950s ads sardonically giving credit to how much “effort” it takes to move around the house all day like a hummingbird with a vacuum. To that end, elsewhere in Nice Is Just A Place in France, it is matter-of-factly explained, “[Women] first got their taste of how much work sucks during the world wars, when all the bros went away and there was nothing to do. Fortunately, we went sake bombing with the Japanese, so betches got to take the 50s and 60s off from work, and they went back to chilling hard and hosting Tupperware parties. Some time after that, shit got really weird. Some angry women decided they weren’t happy wearing pearls and heels and went on a major power trip.” This tongue-in-cheek little sum up of the situation speaks to the major divide within every woman about “kicking back” and letting her ongoing gender stereotype take hold for the sake of “having fun” by not doing work that involves leaving the house (before corona made that the reality for everyone) versus the need to “prove” herself as being “equal” to a man. Which, again, men will never see her as. They themselves are preprogrammed to believe in their own superiority as a gender, which is likely why a scary-ass white male uprising is coming. Luckily, white men are too ineffectual to do much besides march around with tiki torches.
Toward the end of the video, as Lauper careens through the stodgy streets of Lower Manhattan interrupting “Big Men Doing Important Things” with her crew of women, even the people with dicks can’t help but join in, embracing their own inner “frivolous bitch.” For men, mind you, might be the most frivolous of all. But let’s allow them to believe it’s women for the sake of what being underestimated can do for minimal effort put forth measured against the contents of one’s bank account.
