Within my 10th portfolio post, I will be analyzing the One Direction song “Still The One”, from the boyband’s Take Me Home album. This song focuses on a boy who is trying to win back a girl whose heart he broke. He is trying to win her back over by telling her she is the “one”. Many of the lyrics show stereotypical masculine traits when it comes to relationships. One of the first sets of lyrics that I find to be important to this are:

Hello, hello, I know it’s been a while but baby

I got something that I really wanna let you know, yeah

Something that I wanna let you know

You say, you say to everybody that you hate me

Couldn’t blame you ’cause I know I left you all alone, yeah

I know that I left you all alone

And yeah, now I’m back at your door

You’re lookin’ at me unsure

There are a lot of little pieces of this set of lyrics that are important to looking at stereotypes of femininity and masculinity. The male is showing how assertive and forceful he is being in order to win this girl over and receive her attention/approval. The lyrics state that the woman is unsure, which presents that woman as indecisive (a feminine trait). I also feel like it is very common in media for men to not treat women as they should, and then they try to “win” the woman back. Men are usually trying to compete with one another for a woman and treat her as a prize. This shows the competitive nature of men as a stereotype. This type of situation is usually not presented the other way around, which shows some stereotypes for femininity and masculinity. Another set of lyrics I find to be important are as follows:

Hello, hello, I’m really hoping you’ll forgive me

I keep talking, begging, tell me what I wanna hear, yeah

Girl just tell me what I wanna hear

Within these lyrics we can see again how ambitious and assertive the man is being in order to get this woman to be with him. He is begging and doing all he can in order to get what he wants. He is trying to persuade this woman to tell him what he wants to hear. If you really dig into this further, women are seen to be stereotyped as understanding, which is what the man is hoping for in this situation. The man also states further into the song that he will “never give up”. This idea of constantly fighting for what they want is a masculine characteristic. Overall we can see gender stereotypes within what is supposed to be a persuasive love song.

Shared by: Abigail Gonnering
Image Credit: People Magazine