Here's a Toast!

I was watching MTV am wake up videos one morning…surprise surprise!...and was thrilled by watching Pink’s new video, Raise your glass.

She’s come a long way from “get the party started” and her punk glamour vibe of the 2000’s.  Still sticking to her rock-hard attitude, Pink has managed to put out powerful songs that have a message, like “Stupid Girls,” and now her latest one is “Raise your glass.”

Raise your glass has an empowering tone and sends the message that it’s okay to be yourself.  It’s ok to stand out when everyone else fits in.  It’s okay to be different…be unnatural…be yourself.  In the video she becomes several different characters, showing and teaching us all to celebrate our diversity.

1. Pink/ Rosie the Riveter.

Flexing a muscle and showing off her tats, Pink honors those women of the 1940’s who took on difficult, machine operating factory jobs while the men went off to war.  Usually, the women were responsible for all things relating to the kitchen and raising the family while the husband went off to work.  So, back then it was uncommon for a woman to take the place of the man in the job force, but someone had to do it, while WWII waged on.  Defying the status quo and culture of the time, those women stepped up to the plate.  Still wearing make-up, they simply rolled up their sleeves and got right to work.

2. Pink the bull-fighter

This scene took me a while to understand, but I finally got it.  In the real world, bull fighting is when a matador (Spanish for “killer”) teases a bull with a red flag and conquers it in the end by actually killing it. This scene is quite the opposite however, as Pink acts as the bull and conquers the matador, as we see him falling to the ground.  It’s rather interesting, to think of things being turn upside down and flipped around…of things being abnormal…or it being a completely different situation.

3. Gay wedding

Again we see the theme of being different and out of the ordinary here.  It’s a gay wedding, and pink is the wedding singer.  It seems like any regular wedding; fancy room, everyone’s happy; the only difference is that there is no bride and groom…just groom and groom. 

4.  Pink’s a Gangstaaaa

In the next scene Pink is a tough girl gansta, riding her bike through the hood.  It’s not too common to see a female ganster, it’s usually a male dominated arena, specifically predominated by blacks/Hispanics.  Amid the male ganstas, we see pink acting just as thug as them.  She’s almost like their equal, even though she is a white female.  She’s defying the odds, going against the grain…being different and celebrating it by raising her brown paper bag.

5.  Cowgirl/Auntie SAMantha [haha get it!!...Uncle Sam's wife :)]
Now Pink becomes a country cowgirl getting ready to take on a sumo wrestler.  She’s totally out of her element.  It’s quite obvious that a cowgirl doesn’t belong on a wrestling ring…she should be on the farm.  However, Pink is challenging these generalizations.  Adorned in her red, white, and blue cowgirl outfit with her cow girl boots, Pink puts herself on the same level as a robust sumo wrestler and takes him on.  Also, I should note that the sumo wrestler is dressed like a robber Barron or the Monopoly guy.  Whether she’s making a political statement of rich vs. poor the government vs. the big banks, she’s not afraid to be different, stand out, and fight for what she believes in. In the end, she actually kicks his butt out of the ring and wins, even though no one expected she would.

6. Milk Robber

This one is interesting.  Pink is accompanied by two other people who are dressed in black, much like bank robbers- they even have the stocking on their faces.  However, they aren’t stealing money, they’re robbing milk.  The odd thing is that their taking breast milk from humans and giving it to the cow.  It’s reverse of what happens in real life.  In our world, we rob the cows of their milk for our drinking pleasure.  It’s a totally unnatural scene.  But it’s awesome because it’s different.  I love the attitude here.  It’s showing people that things can be the other way around...however odd it seems.  Why does it have to always be the way we are used to?  It can be different.

7.  Nerdy prom girl

This last one is cute! It’s high school prom, and there’s a nerdy (she’s wearing glasses…so she’s nerdy? ) girl, Pink, sitting lonely in the back of the room, watching everyone around her dance normally with their partners.  The status quo always makes the nerdy people seem lame…too lame to dance at their school prom.  It makes them feel left out.  However, Pink challenges this statement, by sniffing her pits and mustering the courage to just get up and dance.  She finally does and joins an awkwardly dancing boy in the center of the room.  The two dance awkwardly together and seem to be having the most fun at the prom. 

Major message: You don’t have to conform to what society says is right or normal.  It’s totally fine to be yourself and enjoy it.  It’s a-okay to be different, and pink does this by proposing a toast to all the diversity in humanity.  

“So raise your glass if you are wrong,
In all the right ways,
All my underdogs,
We will never be never be anything but loud
And nitty gritty dirty little freaks
Won't you come on and come on and raise your glass,
Just come on and come on and raise your glass”

Watch the full video here.