Did Yoko Ono single-handedly break up the band that everyone knows and loves? No, the Beatles just didn’t like women. This is very apparent in the way some band members blamed Yoko Ono for their downfall and in their lyrics. The Beatles were not perfect and did not fail to let their toxic masculinity shine, several times they wrote and produced songs that inherently encouraged violent dominance and possessiveness over women in relationships. One of their most problematic songs was Run For Your Life, essentially the whole song is a warning by the narrator or the singer that if the woman cheats on him she’ll get hurt or killed. The misogynistic messages of this song and many of their other songs are often overlooked or blissfully ignored by their diehard fans. Idolization culture has caused fans of The Beatles to be desensitized to what children and specifically young men are easily absorbing by The Beatles’ influence and it only contributes to more confusion surrounding love languages and abuse within relationships.

The song Run For Your Life opens up with a rather chipper and upbeat melody. After three or two beats, the horror kicks in. John Lennon sings passionately, “Well, I’d rather see you dead, little girl Than to be with another man You better keep your head, little girl Or I won’t know where I am” He’s expressing that the woman cheating will result in her death. Not only is violence portrayed, but there is also a power dynamic portrayed. By using the words “little girl”, optimistically assuming this song isn’t actually about a little girl, this portrays that the woman is seen as subordinate to the narrator or the man in the relationship. The inclination to control her and to use violence to express discomfort with her being with another man is the very nature of toxic masculinity. In the article Toxic Masculinity and Gender-Based Gun Violence in America: A Way Forward, Hayley Lawrence discusses the gender disparity of gun violence and how men are more likely to be the perpetrators in it, she discusses mainly that toxic masculinity could be at fault for the phenomenon. She explains that toxic masculinity is a product of social pressure writing, “Toxic masculinity posits that, generally, gender constructs and social pressures drive men to suppress emotions, internalize trauma, act out to prove their manliness, demonstrate aggression, and subjugate women. As a result, men may lack peaceful conflict resolution skills or the means to process trauma and negative emotions. This may cause them to turn to violence – against others and against themselves.” (Lawrence) This isn’t to excuse domestic violence or the behavior of domestic abusers but rather to offer an understanding of why the cycle continues. The description of the cause and effect of domestic violence that Lawrence delivers is exactly what Run For Your Life portrays. From this, we can see that The Beatles do have a hand in normalizing and even promoting this behavior.

The idolization culture of society is considerably the most detrimental factor of The Beatles spreading such messages. Idolization, especially in adolescents, is such a huge part of how someone develops their personality and habits, their likes and dislikes. In the article, Adolescent Idolization of Pop Singers: Causes, Expressions, and Reliance a study is displayed that explores idolization habits within three different age groups. They found that idolization is more intense in the adolescent age group. In introducing the study they describe the two components of idolization which are modeling and worshipping. The study reads, “Modeling refers to the desire to be like an idol, which may involve imitation of the idolized figures by, for example, copying their dress, hairstyle, speech, activities, and any other social behavioral patterns.” (Raviv et al.) The modeling aspect of idolization is frightening in the context of Run For Your Life. We can imagine a teenage boy who was raised to love The Beatles and listens to them very often. If it’s to the point of idolization he may copy the “social behavioral patterns” of this very song and confuse love with control, jealousy, and violence. Idolization just allows for any message really to be absorbed by young people trying to figure out how they will function in society and it is incredibly dangerous when artists don’t take that into account or think about their impact critically. The study even discusses the impact that rock songs, specifically, have on young people. It reads, “It provides adolescents with a framework of beliefs, expressive symbols, and values through which they (and adults too, of course) define their worlds, express their feelings, make judgments, and decide on courses of action” (Raviv et al.) When idolized, there is so much more than just the sound of music to young listeners, the lyrics can basically shape their ideals and values and scarily their actions. From this evidence it can not be denied that The Beatles and specifically their song Run For Your Life can have a lot of influence on the way that young men carry themselves and interact with their partners. The idolization of The Beatles and the way it shapes young men’s lives can only risk the consequences of more domestic violence and toxic relationships.

Idolization culture, however, isn’t only dangerous in the way that it allows young men to absorb misogynistic messages from The Beatles but it also blinds adults from seeing such effects and doing something about it. Blissful ignorance is a repeated offense made by adults in this society due to musician idolization, and in this case, it only harms more generations of kids. I was raised by my mother to love The Beatles, as it was her favorite band growing up. We always listened to them in the car and I remember the first time I heard Run For Your Life was with her. She turned it up, and said “This one is a little creepy but it’s so good” I thought it was a little funny at the time but now that I look back it’s quite concerning. I think that what I would have changed about that moment was to have her explain that I should never confuse violent threats and jealousy as love, rather than her dismissing the gravity of such messages by calling it “a little creepy” and turning the music up. But my mother’s response to hearing this song is the very effect of the veil that idolization places on adults’ heads. People often don’t want to stop listening to their favorite artists or take their actions too seriously because their love for the artist is so strong, and this is the common adults’ relationship to The Beatles. In the article, The Dangers of Idolization Zoe Schenk discusses the idolization of political leaders which today we have started to idolize the same as we do celebrities. She writes about her blindness when she was a big supporter of Elizabeth Warren writing, “I then took a step back and reevaluated, reading more sources and different opinions. Her use of her ‘Native American’ ancestry, for example, is insensitive and morally wrong. She isn’t the perfect person, but my blind support for her made me angry and defensive whenever I saw criticism of her, and it ultimately made me support her even more.” (Schenk) Here she admits that she knew Elizabeth Warren wasn’t perfect and said problematic things, which is dangerous with the huge platform that a politician is awarded with, but she had so much belief in Elizabeth Warren that she ignored the bad. Schenk describing her own shortcomings when it comes to idolization well portrays what people often do surrounding the actions of The Beatles. People’s love and unwavering support blind them from the mistakes The Beatles made and it is damaging to the work being done to cultivate a society that uplifts women rather than one that continues to harm them.

Some people may argue that because half of The Beatles are dead or because they don’t make music anymore, there’s not as much significance to or influence from their music. This is an incredibly naive assumption. The nature of the band is timeless, parents teach their children their love of The Beatles and from there, the cycle continues. So let’s imagine a world where the Beatles were no longer listened to or influential, Kanye still exists. Kanye holds a lot of power and influence the way The Beatles did, and creates music with misogynistic messages that young boys absolutely adore and are impacted by. For example, we can look at Kanye’s song I Thought About Killing You. In this song, in spoken word, he expresses how he thought about killing someone he loved, probably his wife. He excuses such violent thoughts by explaining that these thoughts only arise when you care about someone so much. This is incredibly problematic for many different reasons, especially because his fanbase is so huge and full of young men, but also because he’s saying that violent actions towards loved ones like girlfriends or wives just show how much you care about them. This leads to young men having a skewed view of expressing love. So even in a world where The Beatles have no influence over young men themselves (impossible), they already have opened the gates for other artists to have such detrimental influence. Artists follow the paths of other artists, The Beatles have made their mark in many ways including the way that artists with as much fame and adoration as they had are excused from being held accountable for their actions.

All in all, the toxic masculinity and misogyny portrayed in Run For Your Life have gone overlooked and ignored causing young men to be influenced in the way that they behave in relationships, which only leads to more domestic violence and more young boys in the world with distorted ideals of how love should look and their role in it. Idolization culture has completely blinded adults, whose role is to protect adolescents, from seeing the claws that celebrities and their actions have in young people like The Beatles and their song Run For Your Life. As explained before, The Beatles have also opened the gate for other artists to have such influence. To avoid the spread of and normalization of domestic violence, media and idolization culture has to be seriously evaluated. Artists need to consider the audiences they have and understand the weight of their words and the influence of their art. Until that happens artists like Kanye, who still have control of the media that our kids consume, will continue to produce misogynistic and harmful messaging that raises the abusers and misogynists of our world.

 

Work Cited

Raviv, Ariram, et al. “Adolescent Idolization of Pop Singers: Causes, Expressions, and Reliance.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, vol. 25, no. 5, 1996, pp. 631-650. Springer, https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF01537358.pdf. (Smith Library)

In this study, Amiram Raviv, Bar-Tal, Ben-Horin, and Alona Raviv explore three different age groups and how much they idolize influencers of different types, the effect on behavior of how intense the idolization is, and how the idolization has been formed. They found that idolization was more intense in the youngest age group and weakened by older age. They also discuss the inclination toward modeling and worshipping that comes with idolization. Modeling being the desire to be just like the subject being idolized and worshipping being the obsession with the subject. 

 

I can use these findings to explore the danger of adolescents listening to and idolizing The Beatles and how much more detrimental the message in Run For Your Life becomes to them when the idolization isn’t prevented or avoided. These findings can also be used to discuss the undying commitment of fans who blissfully ignore the misogynistic and violent messages The Beatles portrayed in their songs and how such a culture continues to allow musicians to write songs detrimental to how our children are socialized. 

 

Hayley N. Lawrence . “ARTICLE: Toxic Masculinity and Gender-Based Gun Violence in America: A Way Forward.” The Journal of Gender, Race & Justice, 26, 33 Winter, 2023. advance-lexis-com.libproxy.smith.edu/api/document?collection=analytical-materials&id=urn:contentItem:67J7-3NJ1-JX8W-M001-00000-00&context=1516831.  (Smith Library)

Lawrence explores the relationship between gun violence, gender, and toxic masculinity using studies and data. She gives us an analysis of the way that toxic masculinity is prominent in the study of the gender disparity in gun violence. She also examines the social conditions which foster the perpetuation of toxic masculinity. She brings the article to an end by discussing reforms meant to limit mass shootings, domestic violence, etc. while criticizing them for their loopholes and ineffectiveness, and she proposes her own solutions. 

 

I can use these findings to emphasize the seriousness and fatality of such behavior depicted in Run For Your Life and other songs by The Beatles that went unnoticed or were blissfully ignored due to the fame and influence these men held. I specifically wanted to use the social construct aspect of Lawrence’s argument to discuss how common it is for men to use violence to hold dominance over their partners as they were socialized to do and how this is commonly passed off as simple jealousy and hard love.

 

Schenk, Zoe, and Grace Sturlaugson. “The dangers of idolization | Opinion | dailyuw.com.” The Daily UW, 5 October 2020, https://www.dailyuw.com/opinion/critical_conversations/the-dangers-of-idolization/article_19c0117e-06b2-11eb-b367-2bf620230531.html. Accessed 3 December 2023.

In this article, Zoe Schenk writes about the phenomenon of politician idolization and the dangers of it. She argues that putting so much blind support behind a politician is naive and dangerous because it blinds people from seeing the politician’s shortcomings and wrongdoings. She argues that such idolization gives them a lot of power and with accumulated power, it becomes harder to hold them accountable. 

 

I can use this article to portray the impact that idolization has on adults as well, not just kids. It’s also important to see that rock stars and celebrities are not the only places where idolization culture prevails and is detrimental.