Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Audience Analysis for "Respect" by Aretha Franklin
With the song "Respect" Franklin is able to send a message that resonates with all individuals who hear it. The song was a single from her album "I Never Loved a Man the Way I love You." During this time many women participated in the sexual revolution and challenged traditional views. The new freedom for women gave members of society the idea that it was acceptable to discriminate against these women. However, Franklin's song challenges this stigma and directly addresses this problem. She includes lines such as " I ain't gonna do you wrong while you're gone....cause I don't wanna" which challenges the idea that a woman will go behind a man's back just because she has more freedom. The emphasis on "I don't wanna" gives the woman a powerful aura because she has the choice to make her own actions. By including lines that adhere to traditional values like faithfulness she is able to show her partner that she is worthy of respect and moreover deserves it. The audience that the song seems to be reaching out to is a lover; however, by reading between the lyrics it is easy to see one of the underlying messages that she included for the general public to notice and understand. She ultimately wants individuals to realize that just because women get more rights it does not mean that they are going to "run wild" and forget about self respect.
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It's interesting how she uses this song to make clear that traditional values can exist hand in hand with freedom and that freedom goes beyond sexual liberty. It would be a new perspective to compare and contrast how her words effect men and women respectively.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how she uses this song to make clear that traditional values can exist hand in hand with freedom and that freedom goes beyond sexual liberty. It would be a new perspective to compare and contrast how her words effect men and women respectively.
ReplyDelete-Roohali Sukhavasi
To me, it seems like the audience is more about the general public rather than one lover, and you did a good job of touching up on this at the end of the post.
ReplyDeleteI, too, found it interesting how Franklin used the idea of traditional values to reinforce freedom. I loved her argument that men have nothing to worry about just because women have more freedom. It doesn't mean that they'll abuse it that way.
ReplyDeleteWhen you first began by saying her audience was a singular person, I was a bit hesitant. However, you then added that her audience was actually the general public and her message to them was "just because women get more rights it does not mean that they are going to 'run wild' and forget about self respect." I absolutely love that analysis and 100% agree. Even now I think that women struggle getting that message across which is where double standards come into play.
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