Robin Thicke’s, who is a 37-year-old adult male. He’s recorded an album to win back Paula Patton, his wife of nine years. (The couple separated earlier this year amidst allegations of Thicke’s infidelity.) He’s calling the album Paula, and in doing so, expanding the horizons for bad ideas. There should be a specific word for this.
The neat trick about Paula is that, though the album is named after Paula Patton and includes songs titled “Get Her Back,” it’s really all about Thicke. In the video for "Get Her Back" Thicke is the injured party. (He’s literally scratched and smeared with blood at one point.) But if Thicke cared about Patton, he wouldn’t be making music that publicly pleads for her forgiveness. He’s @ing Vevo in his Tweet’s about Paula (and Paula). As my colleague put it, “Paula found out that he was fucking hoes, and everyone felt sorry for her. Now he wants the attention and wants people to feel sorry for him.” Thicke’s going to make an album that sounds like walking on your hands and knees, which will have the effect of allowing terrible people to call Paula terrible name… Aw, he’s so apologetic; she’s being such a bitch….when she does the right thing and stays all the way divorced from him.
One of the many terrible things about Thicke’s album and this is just theoretically speaking; imagine how much worse it will get once we have all the lyrics and music videos!…is how the thinking fits in with men’s rights ideology. Men’s rights activists could be described as men who don’t understand the meaning of the word “no.” Paula Patton has separated from her husband, but now it looks like her husband doesn’t get that. The idea that a woman can be coerced into any act or relationship through some man’s will power and focus needs to stop. (Also, remember that consent and the lack thereof was a hallmark of “Blurred Lines”: “I know you want it.”)
If Robin Thicke doesn’t actually think he could reunite with Paula Patton via an album called Paula, if he’s only doing this for the publicity (and sales) it will garner, then he’s got really great business sense. (Not much in the way of a conscience, though. Evidence of this: @Vevo.) This is an effort with the support of a record label to change one woman’s “no” into a yes.”