Music Wednsdays: Hard Out Here: Liking Problematic Music

Errata: Last week's post cited Lily Allen's newest song as "Hard Out There" it should be "Hard Out Here" I have corrected it.

Note, the first: this post veers into politics bit, feel free to skip on if you don't want to go there

note the second: I’m white (though biologically female) I acknowledge that I’m coming at this from a privileged perspective. I just thought I'd address it given that I have already mentioned the song in passing. Feel free to drop me an ask/message/email if I've said something really out of line.

Under a spoiler cut so that people who don't want to read political stuff can skip it easily

In the previous post I mentioned Lily Allen’s “Hard Out Here’ since then that video (and some of the song’s lyrics) have caught a huge amount of flack for racism. I also feel there  is some slut shaming despite her defending her own sex life.

Where Allen has drawn the most flack is her presentation of black women in  her video. First,  she makes a quip about  not bragging about  her cars and chains,  a common theme in  hip-hop music.  She then appears fully clothed, with the comment ”I don't have to shake my ass for you ‘cause I've got a brain“ (qtd)  while in the background and to either side of her she has black, curvy women doing  exactly that-- dancing provocatively.  So there’s our first slap in the face toward black women.  She goes on to say  that  if she told  the presumably white male target of the song about her sex life it would make him blush. So we establish very quickly its okay for her to be sexual, but not black women. Or is it that she’s allowed to do it behind closed doors, but doing it in public  is a Bad Thing.

In short if you're not her kind of ‘bitch’ then you aren't good enough to play in the equality sand box. 

The whole video is like that.

So why do I like about this very problematic piece? 

While I've never much cared for her voice (just a personal thing, she’s got an alright voice just not my thing) I've always had a fondness for her sharp wit and sarcasm. She’s got  the boldness to call the patriarchy out on it’s bullshit and isn't afraid to get a little personal about it.  She takes no crap and sticks to her guns even when under media fire, but she keeps her tone even. She doesn't just fly off the handle. Credit to her where it’s due.  And this song and the media fall out really serve to illustrate how well she sticks to her guns. 

While overall I can't support her, I would that more women had that kind of gall.