Call Me Maybe: Your Summer Song about Courtship Conformity

All the boys only try to chase her, because she can outrun them even in those heels. True story.

Call Me Maybe, anthemically sung by everyone from Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber to the US Olympic Swimming Team, to (sort of...?) President Obama, has launched Carly Rae Jepsen’s career and ruined my summer radio.  And it’s a little difficult to look beyond that, at first – it’s upbeat, perky, and catching like a staph infection, but the saccharine pop lyrics can surely be taken at face value. Additionally, given that the song’s mercilessly mocked as much as it’s hopelessly beloved, there isn’t much new we can say. Right?

No, and no.  When examining the actual song lyrics as they compare to the instagram-esque music video, we can see that there’s more than poppy sweetness to this song – regardless of Carly Rae Jepsen’s intentions, Call Me Maybe (and its music video) reinforces outdated standards of courtship demeaning to both parties involved.
Don't believe me? Have a listen, and review the following step-by-step analysis.

So here we have Carly Rae Jepsen, wiling away her dull summer by reading romance novels and playing with her otherwise all-male garage band. Suddenly, enter love interest: the next door neighbor rippling with muscles and fulfilling all standards of conventional media masculinity. That’s where her song hits its stride:

I threw a wish in a well / don’t ask me, I’ll never tell / I looked to you as it fell / and now you’re in my way.

Yes, the ladies wish for me all the time.

Basically, Carly Rae wishes for a love, but true to conventions of courtship, cannot express her feelings to the object of her affections (don’t ask me, I’ll never tell). To play the devil’s advocate, maybe she’s just shy – there’s no need to imagine that she’s actually taking the burden of hackneyed courtship rituals. But then we get to the next few lines (after, of course, she described ripped jeans and skin showing):

Hey, I just met you / and this is crazy / but here’s my number / so call me maybe!

It’s hard to look right / at you baby / but here’s my number / so call me maybe!

Through this montage, the music video shows that as much as Carly appreciates her desires’ physical attributes, it would be improper for her to make her feelings truly known.

What are you doing?! I'm honor-bound to, like the Christian maiden
that I am, pretend that I dislike you and rebuff your advances until we are
wed! I bet this will stay in style for at least 500 more years, just wait and see, Reginald.

Here, too, we reach the crux of the problem. We’re also apparently supposed to find it crazy, out-of-this-world bizarre and quirky that Carly would dare give her number to someone and suggest that they noncommittally “call her maybe,” an offensive suggestion – Carly doesn’t come with a dowry and a chastity belt, so what exactly is the issue with her (and therefore, any woman) showing how she feels about a man? Answer: there is no issue. But doing so would superficially challenge courtship norms, in which the man is supposed to take the initiative even if, in Carly’s situation, she is doing her best to not seem interested. As the rest of the lyrics say, all the other boys / try to chase me.

Perhaps catching onto this, instead of portraying Carly as simply shy, the music video shows her as over-the-top in trying to catch the neighbor boy’s attention – she writhes and gyrates on a soapy car, making a fool of herself until she eventually blacks out.

Well, at least the car's clean. A small price to pay for a few brain cells.

By pushing the character of Carly into that of literally “a fool for love,” the music video further emphasizes the notion that it’s silly for Carly to challenge heterosexual courtship norms and continue to suggest that the neighbor boy “call her maybe.”

Thus ends the song’s assault on female empowerment, but the music video takes it a step further and tries to make a mockery of homosexual courtship as well.

After Carly’s serenaded her great love, literally performed what we’re meant to see as adorable craziness to him, she turns away to write down her number. But – what a shock! The neighbor boy gives his number to one of her bandmates.

What are we to make of this?

First of all, we can’t, no matter how hard we try, conclude that the video is attempting to make some grand gesture of acceptance toward homosexual relationships; if that were so, Carly could have been flirting with a woman the entire music video, or her bandmate could have been coached to not respond to the hot neighbor’s come-on with such a shocked and horrified expression. Instead, the music video has obviously attempted to add another layer of the ludicrous to show just how “crazy” and mixed up Carly has the potential to make people’s love lives – the hot neighbor’s attempt at love with Carly’s bandmate is a parody, and is not to be taken seriously by the viewer. Rather than actually contributing something meaningful to the cotton-candy fluff of Carly’s song, the tiny sliver of a scene merely makes a sad yet demeaning punchline to an already disappointingly conformist song. That's all, you can go back to trying to enjoy the music now.