Sexualization in the Media: Purple Lace Bra

    “Did my purple lace bra get your attention?” This alludes to the theme of 21-year-old Canadian singer/songwriter Tate Mcrae’s song Purple Lace Bra. This song is the 5th track on her 2025 album So Close to What. This song confronts how the media and her audience sexualize her and miss the deeper meanings of her songs when she isn’t seen in such a way. 

    Mcrae’s introspective song tackles how she feels perceived and doesn’t feel heard or seen in a deeper way than just sexually. In an interview with Billboard News on their YouTube channel on February 21, she plainly told the audience the true meaning behind her song, Purple Lace Bra. She says, “So honestly the song was about my relationship with me in the media, feeling like a woman for the first time, feeling sexualized for the first time, and feeling like people weren't receiving my work how I wanted it to be received” (Billboard, 4:12-4:25). This quote gives the audience the deeper context to the song when they didn’t really listen to it in that way before. Originally, fans believed it was about sex or about a man in her life who didn’t understand her, which is very ironic in hindsight, seeing the real significance of the song to Mcrae. In an interview with Jake Shane on his YouTube channel from February 19, 2025, just two days before the premiere of her album, Mcrae and Shane discussed the meaning of Purple Lace Bra and how she ended up writing it. She describes a time when she was on a break from touring and writing in her journal. She explains, “I was just like writing things in my journal and reflecting on life and I kept writing like would you hear me more if I acted like this or would you hear me more if I talked like this or if I wrote like this feeling like sometimes I just like wasn't being like heard.” (Jake Shane, 8:28). In this interview she reveals how she was feeling during this time in her life, and how it inspired her to write this song. She describes intense reflection and a stream of consciousness that really shows her internal hurt and conflict due to this relationship she has with the media. 

    Aside from Tate Mcrae’s interviews telling us about her song, digging into her lyrics reveals the same message. In her first verse, she sings, “Yeah, I know that you look, but you don't see it.” This lyric is very telling about the overall message of the song immediately after starting into it. It shows that she doesn't feel seen for her sacrifices or successes. Although she dreamed of being a famous singer, it still takes and takes from her but no one sees it. A few lines before exhibiting this pain she feels, she sings, “I have been goin' all night 'til my throat's bleeding.” This line shows the hurt and sacrifice she makes for her audience and paired with the other line, it shows that she doesn’t think her audience sees this in her. They don’t see the pain she goes through for them and it hurts her more.

    The second verse continues the theme of how she feels like the only way for people to hear her is if she is heavily sexualized. She sings, “'Cause my body positioning/Determines if you're listenin'.” This lyric shows yet another feeling of not being heard. She describes not being listened to unless she jumps through hoops and paints herself in a way she never expected when she first dreamt of being a singer. In that same verse, she sings, “Yeah, now I got you like that, let me finish.” This lyric is really telling how she views her songs. She feels like she has to have a sensual nature to her songs or music videos to draw people in, almost like a hook.  

    Her chorus is repeated four times in the song, and it continues the message in a very eloquent way. She sings, “Would you hear me more if I whispered in your ear?/Made all my inner thoughts sound like, ‘Ah, ah’/Would you hear me more if I touch you right here?/Made everything I want sound like, ‘Ah, ah’” She sings this over and over, and follows it up with “Would you hear me, hear me?/Would you hear me, hear me? (Would you hear me more? Ooh)/Would you hear me/If all my inner thoughts sound like-” This directly reveals her reflections from her journal. Although this isn’t apparent from the song alone, these lyrics combined with the interviews show the even deeper self-reflection that went on in the writing of this song. 

    The bridge of the song has the most sexual shock value. This introduces the paradox of having a very sexually explicit few lyrics, which deliver the heaviest hit of the message. Mcrae belts, “I'm losing my mind, I'm losing my head/You only listen when I'm undressed/Hear what you like and none of the rest, 'est (no, no, no)/I'm losing my mind 'cause giving you head's/The only time you think I've got depth.” This points out plainly to the audience that they ‘only listen when she’s undressed’ which tells the audience the message she wants them to get. The added layer of including the more plainly explicit lyric adds to the irony as it shows how she really feels like she needs that kind of topic mentioned in her song for her audience to understand her message.    

    Purple Lace Bra gives Tate Mcrae a vehicle to critique the way the media and fans perceive female artists. She shows that they often focus on sexual topics and overlook any real depth in their music. Her lyrics as well as interviews reveal her frustration with this feeling of being unheard unless she presents herself in this hypersexualized way. The irony of her provocative language forces her audience to dig deeper into the song and question how they engage with her music. The song serves as a personal reflection and window into her own feelings as well as commentary on the struggles of any woman in the music industry. She brings to light the way that attention and depth in the public eye often come at the expense of authenticity and staying true to one’s values.