I've never been the biggest fan of pop music, it's not my brand, never has been, but since I started writing about music I've tried to keep up with genres other than the ones I'm interested in. The overwhelming impression I've got from pop music in the last couple of years is one of toxic masculinity. The main culprit is Shawn Mendes laughable hit Treat You Better. The song places Mendes in the role of the good guy, that is if the definition of a good guy is one who questions the girls he wants and her choices of men over him, while also saying that he is the better option if the bitch would just open her eyes and see him.
That, in my book, is not a good guy. The guy who wants to save the object of his affections by taking her choices away from her is the moral that comes through loud and clear from this song, no matter how much Mendes and the video tries to defend him by show a tattooed thug glaring. What he's asking her to do is swap one abuser for another. Then there's Drake, a man whose biggest hit of the last few years slams an ex for getting on with her life rather than being a shut in. Obviously I don't know the pop charts super well but is the whole idea of respect for the opposite sex just been thrown out the window. Even the break-up duets like Chainsmokers Closer blame the woman for the break-up, even writing the songs female character as feeling like an idiot. Are there artists out there who don't subscribe to this douchey stereotype? Is it not crazy that playing the male persona that causes the most emotional damage to other people the thing that make millions now?
I know the same thing goes on in the alternative scene, but at least a few of them rake themselves over the coals of self-awareness and actually get good material from this behaviour that they recognise as abhorrent. The question really comes down to whether Shawn Mendes will treat you better, or will he continue to promote a form of representation that is damaging to both men and women.
