Tough Lover: Christina Aguilera Reflection

While the song title “Tough Lover” immediately introduces sex as the topic along with ideas of domination and rough bed play, the video is not so simple. This song is from a movie called Burlesque in where Christina Aguilera’s character flees her bar job and moves to L.A. to pursue her singing career. She is rejected at every audition and then settles for a bar job at a Burlesque club after being rejected to be a singer there. But one night the lead singer shows up too drunk to perform the song “Tough Lover” and they stop the show and turn off the music, only for Christina Aguilera’s character to step up and start singing without the music even playing. And after a fantastic performance that wins over the fans and her boss, she is given the new role of lead singer.

So while the topic and lyrics of the song are all about sexuality, the narrative in the video focuses more on Aguilera’s singing ability. For the first 20 seconds or so the camera is close up on her face while she first begins to sing without the music. The audience is supposed to be amazed with her vocal talent and not her body. Later on in the performance however, there are shots further away showing her full body as she swings and dips her hips. And all while singing about how she needs someone that will lover her right and give her the fix she needs. But still, the music is very fast, upbeat, and jazzy rather than being a slow sensual song. The rhythm lends more power to her singing talent than her sexuality. Because of this combined focus on her vocals and her body I would say in this song and video, Aguilera resides somewhere between the Diva and Provocateur category.

Because clearly her voice alone is not enough amazement for the audience in the movie nor for the viewers of the film. One could listen to the song without any visual aid and perhaps be amazed, but since this specific song resides in the world of a film there is still an emphasis on her sexuality in her performance along with the subject matter of the song. There is a strong balance between her sexual performance as she must entice the crowd, but must also provide a strong vocal performance to move the narrative forward. She must be amazing at singing if she is to overthrow the lead singer, so the importance of the plot forces much of the emphasis of the performance to be purely about her singing.

One of the comments on this video reads: “When she first starts to sing, she's like a lioness stalking her territory!”

I believe this comments is a fantastic way to sum up the performance, because it captures both her amazing singing ability and her sexual performance. And during her performance she uses this sexuality as power as she brings a man on stage as she teases him, only to then push him off so she could consume all of the spotlight. The metaphor of her being a ‘lioness stalking her territory’ perfectly captures what she produced on stage. While she says she needs a tough lover, it his her who is actually tough and rough in bed. She is the lioness going on a hunt with her powerful vocals and dominant sexuality and beware anyone that tries to stop her.