Lily Allen - This summers biggest racist?

nb i am a person who is very fatigued by the notion of "slut-shaming" because women who aren't seen as sexual also get a shitty end of the ol' patriarchy stick in ways that aren't as acceptable to discuss because doing so kickstarts the "slut-shaming" cycle, which, sigh

i think it was erika villani who coined the term "prude-shaming" a while ago (i think re: t-swift?) - i definitely see it as a concept that could do with more traction, and with an emphasis that it comes from the exact same place as slut-shaming

BUT i read the line "don’t need to shake my ass for you ‘cuz I got a brain" as more of a "hi, women are not just sexual beings for you to leer at until we get ancient at the ripe old age of 25, and we have worth beyond your slobbering gaze" sort of protest?

shitting on other women is a poor way to fight sexism.

I wonder if in this age of intense scrutiny of every lyric whether musicians will make themselves think harder or run songs past other people to pick up on bits that don't work. The video's horribly misjudged but the lyrics are fine imo apart from that one line, yet of course that's the line we're talking about.

lex: http://thequietus.com/articles/13871-lily-allen-hard-out-here-macklemore-miley-cyrus

No, they're not, DL! I listened to the song before watching the video and it still sucked.

I don't like "I won't be bragging 'bout my cars or talking 'bout my chains" but I don't have a problem with the rest of it.

the song is, on a musical level, astonishingly weak

sorry if i missed it being posted already, but http://noisey.vice.com/blog/lily-allen-hard-out-here-ayesha-a-siddiqi is good.

Oh man I clicked this thread and now bagpuss is ruined forever, thanks conty

Great article, Lex

is taking this style of dancing and body image into videos outside rap and rnb useful at all? inevitably cack-handed but maybe it ends up actually helping to enhance the debate beyond the extreme ends (essentially down to whether or not it exploits men as potently as women) even if most of what gets said is so clueless and cringeworthy (lily and the director apparently leading the way there - just saying as long as people are talking about it we've done our job shouldn't be good enough)

but other videos this year like 'pour it up' and major lazer's totally ignored 'bubble butt' seem more interesting in exploring the exploitation issue (if only by virtue of being more conceptually and stylistically disturbing with it)

also i guess i should've made this more explicit but can we talk about allen criticising hip-hop wealth culture then a verse later blithely presenting "there's money to make" as a feminist sentiment

What is this throwback obsession with gold chains this year? Lest we forget: "If you don't judge my gold chains/I'll forget the iron chains".

http://www.thevine.com.au/music/news/appeal-of-the-wrong-in-pop-lily-allen-hard-out-here-20131114-268343/

and she didn't forget to put a gold chain on her boyfriend's blackface dick

how much of this sort of thing is an expression of revulsion against specific cultural signifiers, compared to general commodity fetishism abetted by over-blown pop culture aspirations, though?

Her appearance on Dizzee Rascal's "Wanna Be" in 2007 was so much wittier and welcome.

xp well if you feel much more revulsion towards the cultural signifiers of black working class commodity fetishism than towards other kinds of commodity fetishism etc then you perhaaaaaps have questions to be asking of yourself.

http://www.collapseboard.com/everett-true/conversation-held-in-public-around-the-new-lily-allen-video/

ayesha siddiqi's piece is great too: http://noisey.vice.com/blog/lily-allen-hard-out-here-ayesha-a-siddiqi

*sigh*
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/the-xrated-factor-lily-allen-sticks-it-to-the-misogynistic-music-man-8935706.html

would like to see more pieces, esp non-official blogs, by women of colour - i think i missed a ton while i was offline writing

chimene suleyman: http://www.poejazzi.com/fighting-against-the-fetishisation-of-women-doesnt-work-if-you-fetishise-women/

So here it is: You don’t satirise race.

I disagree with that as a blanket statement but it's certainly applicable here

10 videos that actually pushed feminism forward in 2013 by Aimee Cliff
http://www.dummymag.com/lists/alternative-feminist-videos-to-lily-allen-2013

wow, Q.U.E.E.N. is really fucking great eh

not watching l. allen video

Janelle Monae rules hardcore

you gotta wonder why more people can't do it with intelligence, charm, good music & STILL get mass airplay. idk.

The short, glib answer is that there's no box for that.

intersectional feminism is thankfully becoming more of an acknowledged thing & i guess monae/badu are 2 of its cultural standard-bearers

janelle monae doesn't get mass airplay

lily allen, i would venture to say, is not

in fact janelle monae barely gets any airplay

lol at thread title change

Well I mean she's no Lorde, right.

Kidding. (Sorta.) But I mean the whitewashing of pop radio is something we've discussed on the board, and it affects artists like Monáe disproportionately.

(Also why are so many people neglecting the FOR YOU in that controversial line? That seems directed toward execs/men.)

(that was directed toward the person who said it was 'shitting on other women'—it's not, it's taking to task the idea of what's EXPECTED of women by men)

Hmmmmm

Bad news, everyone. White guy Rich Juzwiak thinks all this outrage is "phony".

beautiful thread title change

Normally I oppose comedy modding but I couldn't really resist this time.

White people really need to stop slapping down criticism of this video. Elle magazine tweeted Lily Allen's response earlier with the line "take that, haters" because of course calling anyone offended a hater is sure to cool things down. If you're a white person sitting at your keyboard about to tell a black person to chillout, it's nbd, then you should maybe think for a minute.

But I just checked out Rich Juzwiak's tweets and he doesn't mention Lily Allen so is that necessarily what he's referring to?

Considering he used the hashtag #fuckyourlilyallenwhining in a tweet cooing about Mariah Carey (which is what he should stick to) prior to his tweets about phony outrage, it's a reasonable assumption to make.

Ha, OK then

like, yeah, there's a conflate of distaste, outrage, indifference, etc, but unless you genuinely believe there's no legitimate reason to find the video gross, you're better off naming names than saying "SOME people are making too much of..." esp if you're a writer who's regularly gone into mild hysterics in a review over something simply being really stupid.

(that was directed toward the person who said it was 'shitting on other women'—it's not, it's taking to task the idea of what's EXPECTED of women by men)

By saying that women who do what's "expected" don't have a brain? Doesn't seem much like targeting the execs when she's going "lol stupid sluts are stupid." Like, the video literally cuts to one of the dancers after that line. It's not ambiguous or subtle.

I'm wary (and weary) of kneejerk outrage myself so I paid close attention to the initial responses and most of the anger came from black women rather than bandwagon-jumpers so I don't think it's anyone's place to call it phony.

Part of me thinks we'd look really stupid if Juzwiak was referring to something else but the guy has been dismissive of shit he had zero stake in before so whatever.

he's had it up to here with people avoiding the real issues in toronto