For a while, it seemed like Robin Thicke’s summer hit ‘Blurred Lines’ was following me. It was everywhere. Whether I was sat in the car with the radio on, buying a drink in a nightclub, eating in a café, I was treated constantly to the not-so-romantic ‘I know you want it’ refrain we all know and love! Thicke’s song isn’t really an exception; that kind of misogyny seems to be everywhere in pop music. A girl can get a little tired of hearing she’s a ‘bad bitch’ who should be having her ‘ass’ torn in two. Clearly, Lily Allen was thinking along those exact lines. As soon as I heard her brand new single ‘Hard Out Here’, I stopped tuning out the radio and started paying attention. This wasn’t the misogynist drivel and bad raps that I was used to ignoring. Could it be? Could this finally be the response of a woman intelligently and candidly bringing modern day sexism right out into the open and onto the airwaves?
I’ve always liked Lily for her I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude and her honesty. In 2009’s ‘The Fear’, Lily cleverly dismissed the trappings of fame and the vacuous gossip that pervades celebrity culture. While ‘Hard Out Here’ is a far cry from her recently released delicate cover of Keane’s ‘Somewhere Only We Know’, Lily has never been one to shy away from a bit of social critique. ‘Hard Out Here’ shows us the Lily we all know and love, satirising the objectification of women in pop music.
The video shows Lily undergoing lipo-suction while surgeons and a random American guy all talk about how much she’s let herself go. Her mutter of ‘I’ve had two babies…’ goes unheard and unacknowledged. ‘You should probably lose some weight, ‘cause we can’t see your bones’ Lily suggests later on as she polishes a car spokes wheel in a golden kitchen. It’s a horribly stifling 1950s image made insidiously modern and relevant. Put this all together and her message is clear; we’re clearly not ‘out of the woods’ while women aren’t listened to and constantly made to be passive. Women are often not seen as human beings in pop videos that allow them to be nothing more than ‘size sixes’ whose merit is based, not on their brain or personality, but their ability to twerk.
‘Have you thought about your butt, who’s gonna tear it in two?’ Lily asks, wonderfully and wittily ridiculing Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’. If ‘Blurred Lines’ assumes consent, assuming a woman wants it while she remains silent and passive, Lily pipes up only to say what I’m sure a few of us were thinking – actually, I’d rather not have my ‘ass torn in two’. She provides the response where ‘Blurred Lines’ did not allow for one.
Lily has been criticised for her use of backing dancers all of a similar ethnic background and I’m inclined to agree that the video probably could have done without that. Whatever Lily’s message, the backing dancers are made to look undignified, twerking in slow motion, while Lily stands before them, fully clothed, dignified and very white. But I think Lily’s aim here was clearly satire; her intention I’m sure was to mock the concept of employing black women as backing dancers to make them seem nothing more than an accessory or comic contrast to the slim, white front-woman as stars such as Miley Cyrus have been criticised for doing.
‘It’s hard out here for a bitch’ – the song isn’t only catchy, it’s important that a woman within an industry brimming with sexism and objectification stands up and sings back to it. Her song captures brilliantly the increasing pressure of being a woman as the media demands more and more from us. The video is absurd, Lily’s fringe is a bit mad, but the satirical song is addictive. And if one thing is clear, Lily Allen is back with a vengeance.