A good friend of mine posted the below to their Facebook page today:
"I watched the video for Lily Allen's new song today - it's a good pop song with a great message but here's a really spot on critique of her use of black female dancers as sexual props"
First of all here is a link to Lily Allen's new single, which I encourage you to watch
Secondly, here is a link to the blog post linked by my friend
I started writing the below as a response to the Facebook post, and it mutated into the below. I decided to turn it into a blog post.
I disagree with many of the points raised in this blog post. A bigger racist problem for me is how Twerking is just the latest example of white appropriation of black culture in America, which goes back decades. There are countless examples of so called 'coloured records' in the 1950s being re-recorded by white artists and becoming the first big rock and roll records (e.g. Big Joe Turner's Shake Rattle and Roll vs. Bill Haley and the Comets version). Two of the major landmarks on the explosion of Rap and Hip Hop on the pop charts were Run DMC's cover of Aerosmith's Walk This Way, and Ice Ice Baby (The first Hip Hop single to top the Billboard charts, performed by one of the whitest men in the history of the planet). Basically there is a long history of white artists adopting elements of black culture, which then 'legitimises' this culture in widespread media. Twerking too has its origins in black culture, notably in the Bounce music scene of New Orleans. Bounce has been around for 25 years, but predictably only came to greater prominence only when a white girl starts twerking at the VMAs. Twerking has not been a problem to the white dominated media previously, but as soon as white folk start doing it we start nervously tugging at our handkerchiefs.
A lot of the criticism in this article seems to centre around the contrast between how Allen is portrayed in comparison to the dancers. Basically she hasn't shown enough flesh or skanked it up enough to 'earn' the right to satire. This seems to me an odd line to take especially considering the intro to the video, with a couple of white men discussing how much she has 'let herself go'. To suggest by not exposing enough skin she has exploited the dancers is to ignore the fact that Allen is still dressed in sexualised clothing of her own choosing, presumably to an extent she is comfortable with, and not one dictated by a male record executive. The take home for me is that female pop stars can still be sexy to market themselves, without needing to go to the extremes many current female popstars deem necessary (and symbolised in western white media by Miley Cyrus). The contrast between Lily Allen's appearance in this video and those of her dancers is instrumental to this.
I also believe that the shots selected have been specifically selected for the reasons the author of the above post lists. Yes they are voyeuristic and gross. They take the types of things seen in many pop videos today, and amplify them far beyond this to the absolute absurd. Look at the scenes with the champagne being sprayed in slo-mo, or the double handed ass slap (don't get to type that every day). The extreme nature of these coupled with the hyper slo-mo lingering nature of the shots exposes such things for how absolutely ridiculous and exploitative such things really are. To take selected screen grabs to complain about shears them of the context the moving image affords them. Shot selection and editing are crucial elements of what gives moving images meaning. Without them, we merely have collections of random images. (For more info on this I encourage research on Soviet Montage Theory).
As a final note, I definitely reject the final sentences of the article which I quote below:
"On that note, FUCK you Lily Allen and who asked you to drag your ass out of musical retirement in the first place? Despite loving your music (and finding this song catchy), I sure as hell want you to take your ass right back there ASAP."
Telling those you disagree with to shut up and go away is vile behaviour, and akin to bullying in my eyes. Threats, or attempts to silence efforts at actual discourse are always to be abhorred and will always lessen a persons arguments in my eyes.
OK, that's enough Andrew. What started out as a pithy response to a Facebook post has turned into a full blown blog rant. As always, when discussing feminist or race related topics, I realise as a cis white male I may not be in the best position to fully understand all the facets of the arguments. I expect to be wrong in a number of ways, and welcome any criticisms or comments you have below. It is the only way I'll learn!
Posts
