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Samantha Luu

Prof. Granillo

English 103

April 10, 2019

What is A “Stupid” Girl?

When the word “feminine” is brought up, what comes to mind? In western cultures

throughout time, it was a delicate and defenseless young woman, but towards the late 1900s and

early 2000s, the role of a woman has expanded thanks to the advocacy of feminism in media and

music: women finally able to wear trousers in the 1920s, and eventually getting a more

prominent role in the work industry as the 2000s rolled around. In P!nk's 2006 hit song, “Stupid

Girls,” she displays many problems women have fighting for their place in American society,

such as facing the angel or monster dichotomy, being watched under the male gaze, and breaking

out of gender roles when earning a living. “Stupid Girls” is a song that marks an important time

in American feminism where gender roles were beginning to be broken by portraying the

ridiculous roles women are expected to have throughout society.

The music video of Pink's “Stupid Girls” provides a deeper layer into her message of the

song. She repeatedly sings in her intro, “Stupid girl, stupid girls, stupid girls,” as the shot opens

with a young girl wearing a jersey style shirt and holding a barbie doll in her lap. Pink appears as

both the devil and the angel on either side of her, and both are agreeing and disagreeing with

what she sees on the television screen (Pink 00:00-10). The devil is smiling and egging her on

when she is shown scenes of a woman etiquette class, Pink running into a glass door of a

clothing shop, being a backup dancer wearing revealing clothes, getting a spray tan, starring in a
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homemade sex movie, and washing a car wearing nothing but a bra and jean shorts (Pink

00:13-02:30). On the other hand, the angel nods and smiles when the girl is shown Pink

impersonating Hillary Clinton as “the girl president” and beating men in a game of football (Pink

02:39-03:04). On the last scene, which shows an old woman wearing a flamboyantly bright pink

jumpsuit, extreme makeup and flipping her blonde hair in front of her matching pink Ferrari and

mansion, the young girl and angel look at each other and shake their head in disappointment, and

the girl takes a football to play outside with, making up her mind that she will not be a “stupid

girl” (Pink 3:14-3:32). This speaks volumes to the message that P!nk not only conveys through

her song, but also enhances with her music video, shows how she was one of the leading

advocates for a positive feminist change in society.

The idea that Pink encourages the male-dependent, “beautiful” female lifestyles when

depicted as the devil and approves of the self asserting, dominant female lifestyles as an angel

completely contradict the angel or monster dichotomy established in the patriarchal 1960

Victorian England society as described by Gilbert and Gubar in ​The Madwoman In The Attic​. As

the authors state, women are commonly portrayed in male author texts to idealistically be held

under “"eternal feminine" virtues of modesty, gracefulness, purity, delicacy, civility, compliancy,

reticence, chastity, affability, politeness” or else demonized, and “clearly symbolizes the

demise of wit and learning...surrounded by relatives like Ignorance, Pride, Opinion, Noise,

Impudence, and Pedantry, and she herself is as allegorically deformed” (Gilbert and Gubar 29).

In “Stupid Girls,” Pink establishes a new dichotomy that instead promotes women to seek

success in male dominated fields, as the angel in her video cheers at the “girl president” and
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female sports player. These dominant impressions being shown to the little girl display nothing

of what may normally be defined as compliant or graceful.

This is also explained in Tyson’s​ Critical Theory Today.​ In her chapter about Feminism,

Tyson explains that “modest, unassuming, self‑sacrificing, and nurturing [good girls have] no

needs of her own, for she is completely satisfied by serving her family...she is never angry. In

Victorian culture in England she was the “angel in the house” (Tyson 150). In Pink's music video

for “Stupid Girls,” the angelic qualities promoted are completely the opposite. The “girl

president” Pink acts as is angry and yelling at times on the pedestal, and isn't accompanied or

dependent on anyone else, let alone a man. The girl football player Pink plays as is completely

independent to the men she is playing against, and “nurturing” is the last word that would

explain how she shoves over her opponents like any other man in a football game. These figures

that Pink promotes in her song are acting completely out of their free will and passion, regardless

of what other people think or what duties they supposedly assumed in being born a woman, such

as taking care of the the house or dedicating their lives to serving a family. By performing all of

these actions on screen, she is not only playing as a role model for the viewers, but is

simultaneously proving that this type of future is possible for young women.

The devil aspect plays into what Pink doesn’t desires to prevent seeing in future

generations of women: this “Stupid girl” she is describing throughout the song. She states

examples of these types of women as “Looking for a daddy to pay for the champagne...dancing

in the video next to 50 Cent, travel in packs of two or three, with their itsy bitsy doggies and their

teeny-weeny tees” (Pink 0:30-1:02). These type of women are able to have jobs and provide a

living for themselves, but are settling for a lesser achievement by relying on the gender roles that
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were already assigned to them in order to oppress women in the past. Women who do not hold a

stable income similar to their male counterparts, and rather take advantage of their feminine

beauty in order to access luxury items such as champagne only feed into what separates the

equality that feminism promotes. Others may find a stable job, but only utilizing their feminine

figure and sex appeal through dancing not to promote artistic expression, but to be overshadowed

by a male figure as a backup dancer next to a rapper. This only perpetuates the oppression of

women that feminism has fought to break out of, hence being shown as the “devil,” or what not

to do.

By taking on these roles of finding success through feminine looks rather than furthering

female roles in other industries, they are promoting the “male gaze” that has been ingrained in a

patriarchal society. As said by Tehranian in “Copyright’s Male Gaze: Authorship and Inequality

in a Panoptic World”, “In the shadow of the male gaze, a woman in front of the camera has no

independent existence or value of her own outside of the impact she has on the male...She exists

for visual pleasure—a passive erotic object” (Tehranian, 348). The “stupid girl” that Pink speaks

about, entirely focusing on looks, can essentially cheat her way to a position of reaping the

rewards of achievement by pleasing her male counterparts in order to achieve the luxuries that

they have. However, in doing so, they find themselves in a cycle of self deprecation and within a

chokehold from the unrealistic standards of beauty that society bends to their will, which leaves

the “stupid girl” disposable and worthless without these qualities, if not maintained. This is

message is especially highlighted in the scenes that depict all the downfalls of choosing this path:

bulimia, its effects on “lesser” girls, and displaying the short-lived image of the”stupid girl.”
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The other class of woman, which Pink describes as the “outcast,” is shown through her

image as an ideal role model for the young girl that she is singing to, and pleading for her to

follow. This is the type of woman that Pink believes should be at the forefront of the feminist

movement, and represent what women really want. As she says in her song, “Outcast, and girls

with ambition...that’s what I wanna see! Disaster’s all around, A world of despair, Your only

concern, 'Will it fuck up my hair?'” (“Stupid Girl,” 02:02-02:12). Only focusing on the image

may benefit the individual in the short run, but does not help women in American society find

equal chance to have the same status as men and be held to the same merit. This “trophy wife”

image can easily be tarnished and is only skin deep. When these other girls are competing to

succeed in something that is generally not tied to charm or looks, is putting her at a disadvantage

because of the fact that she doesn’t dress or act in a way to get other’s attention. When Pink says,

“Maybe if I act like that... Flipping my blonde hair back… Push out my bra like that, I don’t

wanna be a stupid girl” (Pink 00:36-048). These actions, which are centered around beauty and

outer looks, furthers the gap between male and female gender roles. Although feminism has

allowed women to be able to have jobs and work for themselves, women are still treated lesser,

as if they have to look in a certain way in order to be successful or can only find jobs that focus

on accentuating the body image of an attractive woman.

The fact that Pink breaks many stereotypes throughout this music video, whether it be in

society during the time released or embedded societal norms from the 1960s, shows how her

message broke through in telling her audience of young, American females that the feminine

frame that holds women back from equal rights will be broken, and if taught to the new

generation, women can be seen in an equal light to men. In fact, simply showing one woman,
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Pink, as an assertive woman capable of not only breaking gender roles by playing football and

becoming president, but also as a woman that can be burdened by the pitfalls of being

shortchanged by not having the same sex appeal or only being acknowledged for her sex appeal

shows how forward thinking in promoting feminism she was. Changing the way the general

audience of people saw what was deemed “good” and “bad” about a woman helped women

themselves see new opportunities to pursue for their own benefit, and also helped society

become more accepting of newer female roles that would emerge in the early 2000s. As said in

“Role of Biological Sex and Gender Roles on Perceived Brand Personality” by Kumar Rup,

“This convergence of gender roles has been on rise and can be attributed to factors such as rise in

women participation in higher education, professional education, and workforce, their

penetration into jobs socially assumed to be only for men” (Kumar Rup, 232). Without this song,

“Stupid Girls,” along with many others that came out during the time to serve as the anthem for

strong, young women around America, society would not have been as successful in adapting a

new form of feminism as we know it today.

Living under the patriarchy and facing prejudice from gender, Pink shows how the angel

or monster dichotomy, being watched under the male gaze, and breaking out of gender roles

ultimately perpetuates what drives “stupid girls” from “other girls.” These two types are

predominately distinguished from the amount of money and power they have, which is shown

through their socioeconomic class and how they take advantage of their feminine charm. Pink is

shown not being treated equally in the music video of “Stupid Girls” not only because she is a

woman, but also because she strives to be something more than objectified. This promotes the

idea that a woman cannot be successful without taking advantage of these traits, and undermines
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other talents that they may be have. Pink in this video represents how she believes the gender

roles can be broken because she not only is successful in her talent as a singer and songwriter,

but has faced prejudice for other factors that should not put her at a disadvantage, such as looks.

By literally distinguishing these actions for the little girl to identify in the music video of “Stupid

Girls,” Pink figuratively teaches her audience of future women how to overcome this oppression.

As Pink did in the start of her career and continues to do through her lifestyle as a

successful, powerful woman in both her career and a mother, more women should take action to

follow in her lead. By showing the disparity between a woman who seeks to be helpless and

dependent to males and a woman who fights against the patriarchy and pursues their interests

and dreams, Pink creates a meaningful anthem to to represent the possibilities women have

opened by advocating for their rights in the 21st century.

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Works Cited

Gilbert, Sandra M. ​The Madwoman in the Attic : the Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century

Literary Imagination.​ New Haven :Yale University Press, 1979. Print.

Kumar Rup, Bikash. “Role of Biological Sex and Gender Roles on Perceived Brand

Personality.” October 1, 2018. International Journal of Knowledge Based Intelligent

Engineering Systems.

P!nk. “Stupid Girls.” 2006. MGM Records.

Tehranian, John. “Copyright’s Male Gaze: Authorship and Inequality in a Panoptic World.” July

1, 2018. Harvard Journal of Law & Gender.

Tyson, Lois. ​Critical Theory Today: A User-friendly Guide. ​July 1, 1998.