“Girls Just Want to Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper is a song you want to get up and dance to. It’s a song that makes every inch of your body burst with joy because it is just one of those songs. 

 

The song was originally written by a man. It was supposed to be from a man’s perspective and “fun” was supposed to allude to sex. However, Lauper changed the words and the meaning, revolutionizing the song. Lauper said: “It doesn’t mean that girls just want to fuck... It just means that girls want to have the same damn experience that any man could have.” Lauper illustrated that women deserve to be treated as equals to their male counterparts.

 

“Girls Just Want to Have Fun” is a song about inclusivity, freedom, self-expression, and uniqueness. In addition to singing about girl power (even before girl power was a big thing), she rocked a punk/New Wave look that was still identified with the fringes of rock and roll and mainstream pop. Girls don’t have to feel ashamed of their insecurities or feel as if they look differently than what society defines as beautiful.

 

It was engineered to be an anthem of women’s sexual freedom at the time when feminism was becoming a part of cultural consciousness—and it helped set a template for how future stars would sing about social issues. The early ‘80s could be described as a difficult time for women who called themselves feminists in the press. Equality among women was just as important to Lauper as equality between men and women. The song’s music video is noted as one of the first to feature women of multiple races—it was the song and video that caught the attention of the mainstream by defying it.

 

In the music video, Lauper wanted to have multi-racial and women so that every little girl could see herself represented in it. It would be contagious in that everyone was entitled to (no matter what race or color or anything) to the joyful experience of the song. In a time where women were told what they could and couldn’t do, the song told them to ignore all of it and to have fun.

 

Slut-shaming and sexual repression are still problems, but in a time where more women are being represented in the media, where announcing the wrongdoings of men is encouraged, and where women are being ever more empowered, more American women than ever can have all the “fun” they want. The song is hailed as one of the first racially diverse music videos to be widely shown, and Lauper has been seen as the trailblazer.

 

 Ladies, sometimes all you need is to break the routine and have some fun!