Lily Allen's known for calling it as she sees it, but the message of her new single, 'Hard Out Here', has been lost in accusations of racism. The video for Lily's first single in years was intended as a "light-hearted satirical video that deals with objectification of women within modern pop culture", but it's been criticised for reducing women of colour to props, just as Miley Cyrus' 'We Can't Stop' and VMAs performance were earlier this year.
Lily has published a long response to the claims, in which she says the video "has nothing to do with race, at all":
If I could dance like the ladies can, it would have been my arse on your screens; I actually rehearsed for two weeks trying to perfect my twerk, but failed miserably. If I was a little braver, I would have been wearing a bikini too, but I do not and I have chronic cellulite, which nobody wants to see. What I’m trying to say is that me being covered up has nothing to do with me wanting to disassociate myself from the girls, it has more to do with my own insecurities and I just wanted to feel as comfortable as possible on the shoot day.
BuzzFeed has a comprehensive rundown of the criticisms (and gifs) of the video here, but to sum it up: “The problem was that for satire to have a real effect, mere imitation is not enough.”