A critique of One Direction's ' Steal My Girl'

A critique of One Direction's ' Steal My Girl'

Promoted as an everlasting love story saga, One Direction's lead single ' Steal My Girl' music video directed by Benjamin and Gabe Turner, portrays a completely contrasting meaning. The song's lyrics imply's how the boys ( One Direction) idolize this girl who they view as a goddess,and that how with out her their worlds would never be the same as they can not imagine a life without her as shown in their lyrics “I don't exist, If I don't have her, The sun doesn't shine,The world doesn't turn,”. The song also describes how everyone desires to take her away and have her for themselves. Not only do the lyrics display how protective they are of this particular girl but also how they are claiming her as theirs, which is displayed in their lyrics “Everybody wanna steal my girl ,Everybody wanna take her love away ,Couple billion in the whole wide world ,Find another one 'cause she belongs to me”.

The opening scene of the music video consists of One Direction awaiting their director who was portrayed by Danny Devito, who after showing up explains to the band "We're here in the name of art," "We're here to commit ourselves to a higher form of expression." little did we expect that higher form to involve sumo wrestlers, marching bands, zoo animals ,ballerinas and parasols.

Once the music begins and everyone gets into their places, the singing commences and whilst that is happening all the chaos begins to develop in the background. As the music video continues to reveal in front of us it becomes quite clear that it has no relation to the bands lyrics whats so ever. There is no goddess like figure which the band describes in their lyrics “Kisses like cream,Her walk is so mean,And every jaw drop,When she's in those jeans” nor was there a girl in jeans and no display of kissed like cream presented in the video, which may lead to confusion due the fact that if someone had not seen the video they would assume the video to contain that. Along with there not being anyone who imposed a threat towards the relationship.

Although the lyrics made us think otherwise, the music video remains to have some meaning. Each band member seems to teach the audience something meaningful in the end, we are taught to bestow peace, which is shown through the halting of the sumo wrestlers from fighting along with being taught how to stop racism, by having one of the band members dance with the African dancers. A few more lessons that are presented to us through the music video is the depiction of not allowing inhibition fear us and to be confident and independent, along with being shown we should adore and interact with animals as they are just like humans and lastly we are taught the lesson of how love can be spread everywhere even towards strangers. The video is quite deep and it takes a closer inspection to fully appreciate its deeper well thought out meaning. Ultimately the band was able to bring life to the desert including everyone that was there hence leading to the conclusion that life should be lived peacefully, happily and full of color.