James Brown famously released the “biblically chauvinistic” song “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” in 1966. To add an extra layer to that chauvinism, Brown’s erstwhile girlfriend and the writer of the track, Betty Jean Newsome, was not properly paid the royalties for the track. Cut to 2020, and MARINA seems to be directly responding to misogynistic lyrics like, “You see, man made the cars to take us over the road/Man made the train to carry the heavy load/Man made electric light to take us out of the dark/Man made the boat for the water, like Noah made the ark.” More productive than some musicians in quarantine, our former Electra Heart has been working on a fifth album (granted, she began work on it just before the lockdown) that has led her to release its first single, “Man’s World.”
While such a title is somewhat antithetical to evoking the goal intended, one knows that “Matriarchy” or “Lorena Bobbitts of the World Unite” or even “S.C.U.M. Manifesto 2020” wouldn’t have sold as many copies, and the labels are more desperate to sell as much as they can from whatever major artists they have left. Directed by Alexandra Gavillet, known for the colorful and sumptuous images that comprise the cinematography of the video, we find ourselves in an idyllic landscape where MARINA embraces her Greek roots once more in a très Mother Earth Goddess ensemble, complemented by her masked up backup dancers in coordinating looks–think: Lisa Frank-sanctioned neon togas for the L.A. set.
The pastoral simplicity of nature is filmed in all its glory, as though MARINA is telling us that this oasis could be all of ours if only we would kibosh this completely outmoded system rooted entirely in patriarchy. What’s more, that the preservation of the environment has crumbled in the hands of men, as we’ve let them control its interests for far too long. Thus, MARINA bemoans, “Mother Nature’s dyin’/Nobody’s keepin’ score/I don’t wanna live in a man’s world anymore.”
For those (men) who would insist that things have changed or, at the very least, aren’t as “bad as they used to be,” let us look to the ferocity with which men cling to power by glancing over at the bunker in the White House, where the Orange One has holed up to make some final irrational “Big Boy” decisions before he’s forcibly removed by the Secret Service. The Orange One might seem like an extreme case, but he is, in fact, an allegory for all white men who brutalize until the bitter end in order to hold onto the power they once believed was their “divine right.” For in addition to white privilege, there is male privilege, something women have been working toward eradicating since they “let us” out of the kitchen.
It is to these men who claim that the state of the world does showcase equality between the sexes that MARINA urges, “If you have a mother, daughter or a friend/Maybe it is time, time you comprehend/The world that you live in/Ain’t the same one as them.” And it’s true, for if the world were devoid of men, women would be free to act as, well, men do now–totally unconcerned with consequences or potential threats to their livelihood. MARINA’s subtle use of semiotics is more pointed at a moment during which two hands reach for one another in the same iconic fashion as God and Adam in Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” fresco. It’s as though, in her own small way, she’s trying to rewrite the past and prove that, as Ariana said, “God is a woman,” and She’s ready to remake the Earth with “Eve” in charge. Not the mischievous, “paradise-ruining” Eve depicted in the Bible, but a non-misogynistically portrayed one.
Walking down the hill in a uniform dance-march with her fellow sistren (and a token guy who seems to be “allowed” into the fold–how does it feel to have the script flipped, eh?), MARINA breaks it down even more bluntly with the taunting of women’s inherent superiority for being able to create life as she sings, “Spring appears when the time is right/Women are violets coming to light/Don’t underestimate the making of life/The planet has a funny way of stopping a fight.” This last line pertains to MARINA believing the pandemic has been a way to effectively place a restraint on people so that they are forced to take stock of the kind of lives they’ve been leading, and if this is what they want to keep carrying on with in the future–a future that ever-wanes if none of us acknowledge that this male-proposed capitalism on steroids approach isn’t sustainable for anyone.
MARINA’s final warning is this: “So don’t punish me ‘cause I’m not a man.” If such behavior continues, men have seen the ways in which the paraphrased “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” (albeit an aphorism penned by a typically unempathetic man) can start to apply pressure to their outlook.
Even though Cher already took the title back in 2013, MARINA, again, might have done better to call this single “Woman’s World.” For we can only achieve a dream by putting an intention out into the universe–and a “man’s world” is already that intention for most–even the women claiming they want things to change (you know, like ones who dredge up fembots as a viable pop culture allusion in the present).
