Music Video Review: Till It Happens To You
Lady Gaga brings new kind of out of the ordinary to media
More stories from Aimee Bozoudes
In the video there are multiple drawn out phrases portrayed on the bodies of victims, a common disoriented idea of sexual assault is that the victim was asking to be raped. While if they were asking for anything of the sorts, it wouldn’t be assault.
Lady Gaga released her Grammy and Oscar nominated song Till it Happens to You on September 17th, 2015, directed by Catherine Hardwicke. Offbeat from her conventionally favoured pop lyrics and tunes, and eccentric wardrobe that would leave people talking since her debut, this song addresses something much more real. Something that leaves people in a heavy silence; something that the media never wants to talk about: Sexual assault. And, as this video is fluid in its message, it has earned 5/5 stars.
The song has earned a low 25 -nearly 26- million views, a figure that would seem foreign to the number the public is used to. However, the subject is something that is lowly regarded and sometimes even overlooked so the number may not be such a surprise to some.
As sexual assault is something very intimately personal, the video makes this prominent. Each victim is a college student. A hopeful musician in her bedroom, a pair of female best friends at a party, and a trans gendered male in a restroom. They are all drunkenly and soberly attacked. These places and people, one would assume are safe, personal and no one would be ‘asking for it.’ It portrays these events in black, white, and grey hues to bring the simplicity of the act to screen. Consent was not given and people did what they wanted nonetheless.
The crime is committed at the beginning of the video and by this, it calls attention to the victims after effects of assault which can lead to depression, eating disorders, OCD, PTSD, and flashbacks. However, it does bring light to the support these young people have available to them but may not be willing to accept at first. In the end of the video, it is also made known that 1 in 5 female college students will be sexually assaulted in their time spent as a student unless something is done to prevent it.
Sexual assault has the ability to scar people for years on end, no matter if the act was committed by a wife or husband, a stranger or a friend. And as this video stands out among Lady Gaga’s traditional upbeat music, it grants the public the opportunity not to know, but to have an understanding of sexual assault. But, in reality, unless one experiences it for themselves, you don’t truly know.
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