Feminism/racism in the Lily Allen comeback video "Hard Out Here."

I don't care about this kind of music and dance, and I've never paid any attention to this lady who — I see — went away and has come back, but I've been interested in the ins and outs of the discourse of feminism since before Ms. was a magazine. And I've been observing American racial politics at least since I was 10 years old, when Life magazine featured photographs like these. Everyone read Life, but not every 10 year old had, set out next to Life on the family coffee table, the latest issue of Playboy.

So indulge me while I take a look at the race trouble that's befallen Ms. Allen and inquire into soundness of her "I'm protesting the objectification of women" story. Here's the video that went up 2 days ago and has over 2 million views.

(I have no idea whether that viewership represents actual hunger for more from an artist who'd been away for a while or virality over this race-and-sex controversy to which I'm contributing.)

The video begins with the singer submitting to the violent intrusions of the liposuction wand while a mean old white businessman type guy harangues her about her body. The lyrics bitch about all the pressure to "lose some weight 'cause we can't see your bones" and "fix your face or you'll end up on your own/Don't you want to have somebody who objectifies you?" The chorus is "It's hard out here for a bitch/It's hard, for a bitch."

So, you see, it's pretty basic, mainstream, contemporary, young-person feminism: complaining about the way other people make her obsess about her body all the time. Of course, she proceeds to show off her body and the bodies of many other females, dancing in the manner that she's supposedly so outraged about those terrible other people causing to happen. Let's leave to the side the hypocrisy and lameness of feminism like that, because Allen's in trouble about race.

Here's Ayesha A. Siddiqi writing in Vice.

In full-sleeved dresses Allen mocks her inability to twerk amidst women of color in body suits who launch into exaggerated dance moves, licking their hands and then rubbing their crotch. Her older white male manager tries to get to her to mimic them. Meanwhile she sings, “Don’t need to shake my ass for you/‘Cause I’ve got a brain.”....

It is not feminist to mock talented dancers of color for exercising skills Allen doesn’t possess. It is not feminist to claim that women who cook and dance provocatively are as damaging as a manager barking at her to lose weight. It is not feminist to remain blissfully colorblind in a world that functions along race.

As long as white womens’ empowerment requires lowering everyone else their “feminism” is just rebranded white supremacy.

"We were OK with Miley wearing a one-piece with a bear sticking its tongue out on it."

"We were OK with Miley sticking her face all up in that ladies big butt. However, when she ripped off her clothes to grind all up on Beetlejuice Robin Thicke, that was the twerk that broke the camel's back."

From NY Magazine's selections of the highs and lows of last night's VMA show. I watched the segment described above. It made me feel bad. But they were trying so hard to make people (admittedly, not me) feel good. Like they were bursting with barely containable sexual energy. Like they were. The most entertaining parts were the occasional shots of sad-looking men in the audience who seemed to be averting their eyes.

If the NY sales tax exempts "dramatic or musical art performances," can it deny that exemption to strip club dancers?

The state, arguing that there's no "genuine choreographic dance performance," won in the state's highest court, but only by 4-3. The strip club, Nite Moves, is seeking U.S. Supreme Court review, saying government shouldn't be the judge of the "relative 'value' of the speech."

Once dancing counts as speech within the meaning of freedom of speech, what sense does it make to speak of a "genuine choreographic dance performance"? What is "genuineness" in dance? What does "choregraphic" mean other than "dance"? The (unlinkable) OED defines "choreography" to mean "The art of dancing." The oldest use of the word in English is:

1782   C. Burney Gen. Hist. Music II. 50   In Choregraphy, an art invented about two hundred years ago to delineate the figures and steps of dances.

Would a strip club with a more rigorously planned set of dance moves — less spontaneity — get an exemption?

"Star Bolshoi dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko admits acid attack."

"'I organized this attack,' Dmitrichenko, with dark circles under his eyes and looking slightly disheveled...

Before [the victim Sergei] Filin became the Bolshoi artistic director two years ago, responsible for choosing who danced what part and charting the direction of the company, he was ballet director at the smaller Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater.

There, he tried to hire a young ballerina named Anzhelina Vorontsova, who turned him down to dance at the Bolshoi. Her teacher and mentor at the Bolshoi was Nikolai Tsiskaridze, a dancer who reportedly wanted the Bolshoi job given to Filin and has been an outspoken critic of Bolshoi management.

When Filin joined the Bolshoi, he did not promote Vorontsova, according to the television report. In another twist, Dmitrichenko, who was known for his volatile temperament, was reportedly romantically involved with Vorontsova....

"Boehner defends Senate 'ass' jibe."

Politico front-page headline leads to: "Boehner on 'ass' comment: 'I speak English.'"

(He said the Senate needs to "get off their asses.")

ADDED: I've heard of the hand jibe.



Trying to picture the ass jibe.

AND: I do know the song is "jive," not "jibe," but I'm moved to check out the origins of the 2 words in the Oxford English Dictionary (which I can't link to).

"Jibe," originally spelled "iybe," goes back to 1573, and spelled "gibe," appears prominently in Shakespeare, in Hamlet's speech to the skull of the dead jester Yoricke: "Where be your gibes now?" It's a word "Of obscure origin: perhaps < Old French giber... as meaning to shake... ‘to handle roughly in sport’, ‘to use horseplay.’"

"Jive" is a much more recent word, going back only to 1928. It's U.S. slang, "Origin unknown." It means "Talk or conversation; spec. talk that is misleading, untrue, empty, or pretentious; hence, anything false, worthless, or unpleasant; vaguely, ‘stuff’; = jazz n. 2a."

1928   R. Fisher Walls of Jericho 301   Jive, pursuit in love or any device thereof. Usually flattery with intent to win.

It's also "Lively and uninhibited dancing to dance-music or jazz; spec. ‘jitterbugging,'" which is pretty clearly the meaning in the song.

1943   Dancing Times Dec. 117/1   The rhythm of the Jive is not an entirely new one.
1957   C. MacInnes City of Spades i. iv. 24   I'll teach you..bop steps, and jive, and all.

"Ass jive" would be a much more disparaging way to refer to Boehner's remark.

Imagine if... women bought cars!

An ad from the May 5, 1967 issue of Life Magazine:



"You'll discover that even driving down to buy bread can be kicks. You'll find yourself saying 'I'll pick you up' even when it's Helen's turn to drive. Or Ed's.'"

I love the use of the word "kicks." It's almost as if our little lady is getting in some of those drugs we've been reading about as the Summer of Love rolls in.

The mid-calf skirt is suddenly a mini skirt, but it's only 1967, and if you're as old as I am, you know what that meant — your stocking tops and even your garters might show:



ADDED: The anti-drug song "Kicks" was a hit in 1966. If you ever worry that you don't know how to dance, I guarantee you that 20 seconds into this "Kicks" video you will be able to dance as well as Paul Revere & the Raiders.