Saturday, December 11, 2010

The Brothers Known as Jonas

Like Miley Cyrus, I had only heard about the Jonas Brothers through second hand sources that were referencing popular culture.  I find this to be a strange phenomenon.  Maybe I'm living under a rock, but I do feel like I've had far more exposure to the work of celebrities like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift, while Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers seem to be more representations of tween interest in pop culture.  So I watched a Jonas Brothers' video.  The first one to come up was for the song "Burnin Up".  It's been watched over 87 million times, so maybe I am living under a rock.

The video is actually quite comical.  The scenes go back and forth between the brothers singing poolside, to each brother imitating what I like to call "smooth heroes" from movies and TV from the 60's and 70's.  In the video the guys seem to have it all: they don't take themselves too seriously, play in a band and get lots of attention from girls.  They also make Justin Bieber look like the bad boy of tween music.  The interesting part is that their parodies of suave male characters from the 60's and 70's is supposed to be funny (and to a certain degree, it is), but there is also this underlying theme of having male characters who do everything right, nothing can possibly go wrong for them.  If something does go wrong, it's quickly remedied and the boys are back on the top of the world.  So, on the surface it's fun and light, but when these themes get replayed to a tween girl audience over and over again it does become worrisome.

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