First of all, does the fact that P!nk writes her name with an exclamation mark means that there is a click in her name? And does that mean that her name is, in fact, “P-click-nk”? And if so, how in the world do you pronounce that?

But odd spelling and questionable early hair color choice aside, I love P!nk. Her most recent song, So What, has been in my main playlist since it came out and I listen to it at least a couple of times a day. And for once, I love the video clip even more:

In 2006, P!nk came out with another memorable video clip for her song Stupid girls. For those of you who don’t remember it, here it is:

While I respect P!nk for doing what she wants to do rather than what she is told to do, that I love her music and absolutely adored the two videoclips posted above, I’m a little disappointed that she doesn’t use the momentum created by their success (I’m assuming So What will have the same success as Stupid Girls) to raise awareness on important social issues.

For example, Stupid Girls shows us, in a humorous way, how ridiculous some of the social expectations for girls are. I also like the fact that she does it while looking good – which gives the message that doing what you want rather than blindly following social expectations doesn’t mean rejecting all of it, but rather picking and choosing what you wish to follow. We tend to portray feminists as badly dressed women with terrible hair; here P!nk shows us that doesn’t have to be the case.

The So What video clip is, in my mind, even more brilliant. In a world that tends to over-dramatize everything, P!nk seems to have taken on her recent separation from her husband in stride (Yes, that is actually him in the video!). We see how on one hand, she portrays feelings of anger and failure as normal (who can forget the scene in the clip where P!ink is sawing through the trunk of the tree where her initials and those of her ex’ are carved, only to have it almost crush her poor neighbor?), and yet on the other, she shows that those feelings don’t have to give way to irrational behavior in real life (have you heard anything in tabloids about Pink lately?).

The challenge doesn’t seem to be bringing such subjects up, but channeling them into long-term discourses that will lead to action, so that irrational over-dramatization and ridiculous social expectations can disappear, only to appear in video clips and movies.

Until then, watch out for falling trees.

Pictures taken from P!ink’s official website.