Isn't Adam Levine Too Sexy to be Creepy?

Tuesday, Maroon 5 released the music video for their new single "Animals" from the band's appropriately titled fifth studio album, V. Immediately, the video received a lot of criticism for its supposed portrayal of violence against women. A Time article titled, "New Adam Levine Video Confuses Violence and Love" discusses this view with quotes from the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) to back the authors point about how Levine's stalking of his love interest (played by his real life wife) makes him sexy, misunderstood, and romantic.

(Read the article here: http://time.com/3453596/adam-levine-maroon-5-video-stalker/)

Now, I somewhat agree with this article and somewhat don't. I do agree that the video makes Adam Levine's creepy, meat-butchering character desirable. But I don't agree with the author's framework of where the real problem lies.

Let me change gears on you for just a second so I can explain what framing is and why it's so important. Have you ever only heard one side of a story? And made judgement about a whole occurrence based on that one part without considering another way the story could be seen? Well, this is why media outlets frame stories different ways, giving you that one part they want you to hear so that you will side with their view. Even though different news outlets may cover the same story, for example, the nude photo leak I discussed a few weeks ago, they may frame that story a same way to get across a certain viewpoint. For some outlets, the cause of the leak was blamed on Apple for their poor security, while others blamed the celebrities for taking the pictures in the first place. These points of who to blame made us feel sorry and pitiless for the celebrity victims, respectively. Finally, based on how we felt about the photo leak, we decided what to do about it by either refusing to look at the pictures or stop taking racy photos of ourselves to prevent anything like this happening to us.

So, now let's switch back to Adam Levine and his blood spattered bare chest and discuss the way "Animals" has been discussed in the media thus far. The Time article says the problem is the romanticized stalking in the video, but blames Adam Levine specifically. Not the band, not the director or producer, but in the title calls out Levine by name. The author then morally evaluates the video by saying we should be disturbed by the way Levine makes young, impressionable girls want to be stalked like the girl in this video. The implication, therefore, is that we should basically quit watching Adam Levine's videos because there are troubling examples of his violence in the past, with videos such as "Misery".

Basically, I think the author has a point. Yes, I admit I think Adam Levine is a gloriously attractive human specimen. And his voice makes the butterflies in my tummy flutter. And it is in fact hard of me to see his actions in the video as creepy because he is Adam Levine. But I differ from the author on the cause of this. I think we need to reevaluate our societal schemas, or preconceived ideas we have on certain events, people, and things. Adam Levine knows he is sexy. So does every other person in the world. He's been People's Sexiest Man Alive and is probably the real reason about 90 percent of the female population watches The Voice (No...I didn't just make up that statistic...). But this is not just Levine. In the past, lots of sexy men have made stalking seem romantic by portraying it as an ultimate act of devotion. A great '80s song, "Every Breath You Take" by The Police, is guilty of this. "Every breath you take, I'll be watching you."? I mean...come on.

My favorite example though is the teenage heartthrob/vegetarian vampire Edward Cullen from the Twilight Saga. I mean, he is the creepiest stalker of them all yet isn't thought of one because he's soooo in love with Bella and is handsome as heck. However, when we hear the word "creep" we automatically think of an overweight man with glasses, a beard, and a comb-over hairstyle. This schema doesn't fit with the schema of sexy vampire man Edward Cullen or Adam Levine, who we see as a talented celebrity who could literally make any mundane activity such as eating cereal suddenly become the sexiest thing we've ever witnessed.

Violence and crime in the name of infatuation is prevalent in popular culture, which is in fact very troubling. Yet, I believe the real cause of this is the prominence of these narratives in media across the board and we should be aware that these examples in no way are romantic in real life relationships. And although it seems an impossible feat, we should do our best to rethink what and who we see as having the potential to be creepy.

Sidenote (sort of): I still think Adam Levine is gorgeous and you should watch the new video for "Animals" here if you haven't seen it yet. Spoiler alert: there's lot's of blood and nakedness.