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Melanie Adele Martinez is a famous American singer, songwriter, screenwriter, director, actress, and photographer. She is also of Puerto-Rican and Dominican origin. Melanie’s fame all started when she first auditioned for The Voice and became a member of Team Adam, where her popularity rapidly grew among fans due to her vocals and her ‘Feminist Aesthetic’. Although during the fifth week, she was eliminated but made it to the top 6 on the voice, she didn’t stop there. After she got eliminated which thereupon led to her beginning to work on her independent original albums. Melanie powerfully targets the social standards of the 21st century and has made a big influence with her strong, harsh lyrics.
On September the 1st Melanie Martinez released a jaw-dropping album ‘Dollhouse’. The lyrics and music video, ‘Dollhouse’, break down the image of perfection that society imposes through toxic family and gender roles. In the music video, she and a family are dolls that live in a dollhouse and she is singing to the young girl who owns them. Some of the most powerful lyrics include: “Put on your doll faces”, “I see things that nobody else sees” and “Everyone thinks that we’re perfect, please don’t let them see through the curtains”. The music video shows the family ignoring their problems, such as the father’s infidelity, the mother’s drinking, and the son’s smoking, and putting on the persona of a doll face whenever the little girl goes to play with them. However, in the end, Melanie frightens the girl by letting her into their imperfect world or reality. The music video, lyrics, and visual artistry summon up a creative narrative that exposes the dysfunctions of the idealistic toxic family. Society shows that families should be happy, perfect, and doll-like which is very flawed as this is unfortunately not always true and may change behind closed doors, or in this case curtains, because society dictates how we are to conduct ourselves and contain our emotions in public. The young girl in the music video also plays upon the gender preferences of society. The girls are prescribed their gender roles through toys such as perfect, lifeless dolls and Melanie acts as an odd, out-of-roll, imperfect doll to deliver a harsh reality through a familiar object. The fear that Melanie creates in the girls symbolizes an attempt to wake up the future generation of women to prevent them from blindly accepting such misleading and oppressive roles.
Melanie Martinez also released a music video called ‘Mrs potato Head’ which talks about exploitative capitalist commercialism as well as patriarchy and how it might affect the girls in our society with unrealistic expectations of themselves. The music video shows Melanie watching a commercial featuring blonde wigs for the “perfect woman look” follows. Melanie then goes to the bathroom, puts on lipstick, stuffs her shirt, takes pills, tries to change her appearance, and puts on a blonde wig the same as the one that was featured in the TV commercial; all while crying. She then sits back down at the television to watch a film where the woman's boyfriend forces her to get plastic surgery stating ”No one will love you if you’re unattractive”, “Mrs. Potato Head tells me “Is it true that pain is beauty” and “Do you swear you’ll stay forever, even if her face doesn't stay together” but then just leaves her for another woman in the end. The song shows how some toxic men force women to change their appearance so they can “accept” and “love” them. This shows how passive women are until they truly end up with nothing and no self-confidence. Which teaches us not to buy into sexualized commercialism.
A short film called ‘k-12’ targeted themes in society that no celebrity or influencer would dare to speak of. Melanie’s ‘k-12’ talks about bullying, insecurity, and the importance of learning to embrace one’s imperfections are all readily apparent, and the principle of women's voices.
Melanie Martinez’s feminist/ strong female voice embraces violent emotion that is creatively channeled to inspire and empower young girls. The lyrics and music videos for Dollhouse, Mrs. Potato Head, and k-12, along with the rest of the songs on the album, highlight themes of women relating to other women, not giving in to societal pressure before it is too late, and having hope in the end. All of these messages that come from Melanie’s artistic mind can also be recognized in other feminist acts that surmise the movement and become a big influence on our generation.
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