Blog Post Five: Dollhouse, Melanie Martinez
In Melanie Martinez’s song and music video for Dollhouse, she ridicules society’s constant display of a picture perfect family. This song is one that I have always loved and always leaves me shook to the core when I truly listen to the lyrics. In Dollhouse, Melanie hits on key characteristics of brokeness in each family memeber that could be seen in any average family. But, as soon as you are out in public or people are brought into your home you go back to your “places” and put on “your pretty doll faces.” Every family is broken and faces times of difficulty and unrest at home yet it is something that is never talked about, and instead of being brought into the light in order to be resolved it is pushed farther and father down into the dark until it can no longer be contained. In the song the husband is cheating on the wife, yet he buys her nice things like jewelry in order to try and cover up his infedility. However, the wife is not dumb and she turns to alochol. All of this is going on while the son is smoking weed and everyone is noticing yet no one is doing anything. The little girl playing with the family of dolls in the beginning of the video ends up at the end being pulled into the broken family at the end and becoming the doll. This is a reflection of how families fall apart and eventually even the children get pulled into the brokeness that the parents are wrestling with. Nowadays divorce rates are growing higher and higher, and children are being pulled into the mess younger and younger than ever before.
Hey girl, open the walls, play with your dolls
We’ll be a perfect family
When you walk away, it’s when we really play
You don’t hear me when I say,
Mom, please wake up
Dad’s with a slut, and your son is smoking cannabis
No one never listens, this wallpaper glistens
Don’t let them see what goes down in the kitchen
Places, places, get in your places
Throw on your dress and put on your doll faces
Everyone thinks that we’re perfect
Please don’t let them look through the curtains
Picture, picture, smile for the picture
Pose with your brother, won’t you be a good sister?
Everyone thinks that we’re perfect
Please don’t let them look through the curtains
D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E
I see things that nobody else sees
(D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E
I see things that nobody else sees)
Hey girl, look at my mom, she’s got it going on
Ha, you’re blinded by her jewelry
When you turn your back she pulls out a flask
And forgets his infidelity
Uh-oh, she’s coming to the attic, plastic
Go back to being plastic
No one never listens, this wallpaper glistens
One day they’ll see what goes down in the kitchen
Places, places, get in your places
Throw on your dress and put on your doll faces
Everyone thinks that we’re perfect
Please don’t let them look through the curtains
Picture, picture, smile for the picture
Pose with your brother, won’t you be a good sister?
Everyone thinks that we’re perfect
Please don’t let them look through the curtains
D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E
I see things that nobody else sees
(D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E
I see things that nobody else sees)
Hey girl (hey girl, hey girl, hey girl, hey girl)
Hey girl, open your walls, play with your dolls
We’ll be a perfect family
Places, places, get in your places
Throw on your dress and put on your doll faces
Everyone thinks that we’re perfect
Please don’t let them look through the curtains
Picture, picture, smile for the picture
Pose with your brother, won’t you be a good sister?
Everyone thinks that we’re perfect
Please don’t let them look through the curtains
D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E
I see things that nobody else sees
(D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E
I see things that nobody else sees)