You kids know that your auntie loves buxom women who work hard for the money. So I enjoyed Lilly Allen’s new music video for her hit song “Hard Out Here (For a B*tch)”. But I may be alone in my appreciation of Allen’s video for the work of art that it is. Other black female bloggers are slamming the British pop star’s video as “racist” and “objectifying” black women.
In the video Allen sings about the unfair industry standards for women, while black, white and Asian women twerk and drop it like it’s hot behind her. The dance moves are the standard fare that you would normally see inside any strip club, or onstage at the VMAs for that matter.
It isn’t easy competing with the Beyonce’s and the Rihanna’s of the music world. Singers like Allen and Miley Cyrus have to overcompensate for what they lack in physical attributes and talent.
“It’s Hard” has already racked up 3 million views on Youtube.com, so it must not be that offensive. But, still, urban bloggers such as Cate at Batty Mamzelle aren’t impressed:
There’s a lot that rubs me the wrong way, most specifically her use of black women as props. Here is Lily Allen, a white (presumably feminist) woman, making a statement about her autonomy, sexual agency and self worth, while mocking the very same in black women. The lyrics of the song are all about rejecting objectification and yet, here she is, objectifying women of colour. It’s not lost on me that throughout the video, Allen and her two white dancers are wearing far more clothing than all of the black women who are present. … Lily croons on about how much better she is than all that because she’s above the need to sexualize herself. We get close up shots of jiggling asses and black women licking money all while Lily is fully clothed, professing her superiority. … So what does it say that she has put black women in her video in an explicitly sexual context? That she’s better than them? What does it mean when she sings “Don’t need to shake my ass for you, cause I’ve got a brain“ while surrounded by black women doing exactly that?
Watch the video below and judge for yourselves. Is Lilly Allen racist?
