Blurred lines in sharp focus
Quercus, £16.99
Model Emily Ratajkowski got her big break in 2013 when she was cast in Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams and TI’s video for Blurred Lines.
The lyrics and video raised questions about consent and power as Emily and two other models were skimpily dressed in one version and “almost completely naked” in an uncensored cut, dancing for three fully dressed men.
At the time, Emily declared the video “empowering”. But she has since come to see the exploitative side of not only the modelling industry but society itself.
Here, she tells frank stories of her bleak experiences – some that shaped her, others that chipped away at her illusion of control, many detailing grim incidents of abuse. As a teenage model earning an awful lot more than her school friends, Emily believed that in a capitalist society, “money means power”. But what power did she have?
A photoshoot for an arty magazine ended in sexual assault at the hands of the photographer. Years later, without permission, he published books containing revealing images from the shoot.
An artist sold images of Emily’s Instagram posts for $80,000.
He sent her a piece of art as a present but, when her relationship broke up, her ex demanded $10,000 for its return.
Half a decade after the Blurred Lines shoot, Emily is scrolling through Instagram when she realises that Robin Thicke has blocked her.
Wondering why, she had a flashback to a buried memory from the video shoot. Emily and Robin were on set and Emily was dancing when she suddenly felt his hands on her bare breasts.
She walked off the set in shock. The music stopped blaring. The ( female) director asked Emily if she was OK. But then the shoot resumed. The women on set, paid to film Thicke’s video, lacked the power to call him to account.
These incidents also make her re-evaluate formative experiences such as losing her virginity at 14 – “I didn’t know how to say no”.
A year later, she woke to find the same boyfriend having sex with her. “Who had taught me not to scream?”
Her self-belief is slowly eroded until she realises she has built a career on “trading my body and measuring my self-worth in a value system that revolves around men and their desire”.
These well-written, thoughtprovoking essays are Emily’s way of reasserting her control.
They make for fascinating, if depressing, reading.