Lily Allen - This summers biggest racist?

The dancers don't need to feel coerced into cosigning the video in order for the video to be fucked up.

For me, Lily Allen is unambiguously a racist. As such, I'm going to look askance at any interaction she has with race because I have zero faith that she will navigate it in a manner I will agree with. This video bears that out for me, particularly when in response she invokes both "it's just a bit of fun" AND completely undercuts defense of criticism of how she's showing off the bodies of the dancers as compared to herself with "well I have cellulite! no one wants to see that".

I mean, maybe this whole thing is an extended media prank where she is intentionally setting herself up as the caricature of an unthinking privileged racist for satirical purposes but that seems like a stretch.

xp It's not unheard of for women to speak out if they've felt uncomfortable in a movie or video. It's a bit of a leap to assume that they're secretly unhappy but too scared to say so. I'm sure they were cool with it but it doesn't mean the viewer can't be uncomfortable with the imagery. It's like if you're anti-porn, you're not going to change your mind because certain porn stars are happy and fulfilled.

xxp How does slagging off someone who's paid you for your work in a public forum usually turns out? If one of them came out and said "Actually, I thought it came out horribly" or whatever, they'd be called ungrateful and of biting the hand that feeds. I fully acknowledge they may have no problem with it - I'm just saying that for the obvious reasons, it's not like we would know if they had problems with the finished product!

I'm very familiar with Ayesha's work. But I think saying that you're throwing women under the bus by saying "no, I don't want to be sexy, I have other things to offer" really diminishes the locus of possible critique—not just by Lily Allen, but by any woman who might not fit into ideals of what is "hot."

(And I am definitely speaking as a woman who has opted out of a lot of shit because she is more than aware that she falls outside the paradigm.)

I'm trying to divorce the lyrics (which I think are still worth discussion) from the imagery (which is really thoughtless). It's "Blurred Lines" all over again! Help!

just curious, as I've only seen the picture, how do we know that's her boyfriend's penis? (and did ...did she dress it up especially for yungrapunxel beef?)

It's a bit of a leap to assume that they're secretly unhappy but too scared to say so.

multiple xps - I see your point, but I disagree, because this isn't the first time she has lashed out at more "conventionally attractive" women partly due to her own issues, when really the ludicrous standards women are expected to live up to are to blame. But that doesn't get you quite as much attention as mocking Cheryl Tweedy. (Remember that whole thing?)

Cheryl said: “I’m really flattered Lily’s written a track about me. But I don’t know why she sings about wanting to be as pretty as me as she looks stunning. I’d like to look like her. It’s about time we had a really cool British girl out there on the music scene.”

But Lily has pointed out that Cheryl missed the point: “I don’t want to look like Cheryl Tweedy! It’s tongue in cheek, it’s meant to be ironic.”

“I don’t have anything against her as a human being but I think the portrayal of her being the right thing for kids to look up to is wrong.

“It was a joke that not many people got. Of course nobody really wants to look like Cheryl, they just think they do.”

I'm surprised that in her article Ayesha hails the Pour It Up video as some kind of feminist breakthrough just because there are no men in it. It's still full of ass and crotch shots and you never even see the strippers' faces, only Rihanna's. To say that it "priotizes the female gaze" suggests a low bar. I'm sure a lot of the 67 million YouTube views came from men who are happy watching faceless strippers.

I'm trying to divorce the lyrics (which I think are still worth discussion) from the imagery (which is really thoughtless).

I don't think you can do this very easily, given that the imagery is why people are paying attention to the song AND that particular imagery was selected to complement/reinforce the message of the song. It's like, a bunch of white dudes who beat up a black dude may or may not have done so for reasons based on race, but when you find out the dudes were all dressed up in Klan outfits, the story changes dramatically.

dorian, did you read this round table that ayesha contributed to re: the "pour it up" video? http://thehairpin.com/2013/10/rihanna-on-my-mind

i don't entirely agree with everything - but it's just a conversation with ideas thrown round, not a conclusion - and nor would i single it out as a particularly subversive music video, but i do like the idea of solidarity shown with strippers (and fwiw a few people i follow in the sex worker community were very pro this point as well)

(i do think "pour it up" is a much more interesting song than video, which makes a change for latter-day rihanna)

I don't see where the solidarity comes in tbh. Show their faces if you want to be on their side.

or you could show females who work somewhere besides strip clubs

That too.

you realize that you're saying "women who strip are not worthy of being celebrated by other women" right?

the "pour it up" video seems to me like a pretty blatantly obvious example of re-claiming something that is stigmatized

also there was a whole side discussion on twitter in response to the hairpin rihanna piece about how the "pour it up" video interacts with west indian culture that i won't attempt to summarize here but suffice to say there is a lot more going on there than most non-west indians (myself included) would initially pick up on

like e.g. a big dance culture in jamaica based around women dancing in this way but not for money?

for starters

v interesting that e.g. 'pon de floor' showed the gender interaction (but also seen as mis-appropriation rightly or wrongly) but 'pour it up' doesn't (and seen as reclaimation)

This is what I mean by a low bar. The video doesn't make the male viewer uncomfortable or subvert his expectations in any significant way. It doesn't allow the strippers any personality. By not showing their faces it presents them only as sexualised bodies. And yet it counts as celebration and reclamation because it's better than all the other videos with strippers in? Maybe so. I've read the Hairpin discussion twice and I just don't see it.

it's kind of amazing someone could fit variations of evasive troll moves like "i'm sorry i'm not sorry," "it was all in fun" AND "talking about it? good, sparking a conversation was the goal" while chalking up any perceived failure to the very insecurity she's campaigning against (again, without actually copping to any failure - if she'd pointed out how her fear of the male gaze made it seem like she was critiquing those less afraid, and apologized to the women offended by that, this would be another matter entirely). like, even if there weren't other examples of her attacking other women and being horrible about race, this would be enough evidence that she's not The Pop Star We Need In 2013. Like, can we literally not find someone better at pointing out that objectification sucks?

to be clear, i still like some of her songs and i know "white dude decries white woman's intersectional crimes" is quickly becoming a grating web cliche. i just find this pretty tragic, in part because I really like some of her stuff. this is a hell of a way to come back.

Lily is to feminism what Russell Brand is to socialism - I'm glad someone's out there making these points but good god this is a terrible person to rally behind and they undermine them in so many other ways.

funny you should say that - was just reading this pretty decent blog arguing that

http://dietofbrokenbiscuits.com/post/66955869090/misogyny-racism-and-dick-pics-why-we-need-to-aim

I am curious; why was Jennifer Lawrence brought up and then exempted from critique?

ditto. i'll be real upset if i have to start hating jennifer lawrence now

i actually have no idea

I mean, she gets labeled as "problematic" without ever going into exactly what is problematic about her, whereas most of the things I've heard from her have been self-aware in a way I've come to never expect from anyone famous talking to the media.

And it's not like I don't think she could be problematic; EVERYONE can be problematic! I'd just like to know why she's problematic; if it's tied to the dichotomy between her stance about how she wants to appear in The Hunger Games contrasted with a sexy photo shoot for GQ, there's some rationalization I want to make about manipulating your image for different audiences/contexts that I want to believe isn't complete horseshit.

"problematic" is a chickenshit word by execs infuriated that their nubile female charges aren't doing as told.

i'm kind of shocked a singer like Timberlake or somebody hasn't tried to repurpose that phrase in a sex jam yet (i.e. "girl, i wanna get problematic with you!" or "the way you dress be problematic for me, baby")

xxp beyoncé also did a "sexy photo shoot" for GQ recently, if we're talking about empowered women projecting different versions of themselves in different contexts

Because no one outside of the internet says that word.

yes, that's where it starts

"This take-back-the-night shit be gettin' problematic, girlllll"

no one outside the internet puts a hashtag in front of a word but somehow it wound up in the title of a mariah carey single

Because although she is for the most part sort of harmless and well-meaning, sometimes she says stupid shit like "I knew that if I was going to be naked in front of the world, I wanted to look like a woman and not a prepubescent 13-year-old boy."

your hips, your thighs, they got me problematized

it's systematic, problematic
but i gotta have it

can't you see, sometimes your words just problematize me

I guess Lawrence's statements are "problematic" in a way but they are also critical of the way that fashion fetishizes an unrealistic ideal of the female form. What would be a better way of putting that?

Not buying into the "real women" vs "skinny women" dichotomy. I mean, once again, you can acknowledge the shittiness of standards that have someone who looks like JLaw as "curvy" or "voluptuous" or any of the other code words magazines use that mean fat without implying that there's only one way to look like a woman.

I don't think she's implying there's an absolute dichotomy, but OK.

For me, Lily Allen is unambiguously a racist. As such, I'm going to look askance at any interaction she has with race because I have zero faith that she will navigate it in a manner I will agree with.

what racist stuff did lily allen do prior to this video? googled it but can't find anything.

I guess I don't really see off-the-cuff statements on red carpets or at junkets as unassailable declarations of there being only one alternative? Perhaps the media-saturated age is also resulting in too many opportunities for people to spiral off statements and then point fingers and say "PROBLEMATIC"!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-WTbGupxbk

I wanted to look like a woman and not a prepubescent 13-year-old boy

What does that imply, if not a dichotomy? I mean, these are the body standards Hollywood has for women. Thin and part of the mainstream, or not. Jennifer Lawrence is getting mainstream roles and leads, she's not exactly Rebel Wilson.

Not saying that there should be a thinkpiece and an outrage cycle for every stupid thing someone says on the red carpet but god forbid celebrities, as people like the rest of us, be thoughtful in what they say.

Work a red carpet and get back to me on that.