Lily Allen

I've watched Lily Allen's video 'Hard Out Here' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0CazRHB0so so many times that she's tops of google search on my tablets and laptops (yes I own tablets and laptops - they are my guilty pleasure). I found the Londoner's latest single hilarious and fun to watch which is why I do not understand the PC furore about race in the papers. Yes she uses black women to illustrate her point about media and music industry exploitation of women, but the truth is that that is the truth. Watch any gangster rap video and you'll find the word bitch, ho and black women and the occasional white woman gyrating in skimpy bikinis in front of cars, not too faraway, in fact that is the stuff that sells their music. The pop music sector has followed suit with the likes of Robin Thicke in Blurred Lines.

And one wonders why those women happily oblige to being objectified on video or billboards??

Truth is that the media and advertising gurus have convinced everyone that sex sells, therefore use sex to sell everything from lingerie to cars to coffees and toothpaste - the music video as an advert for a single or album aims to achieve the same thing. Lily Allen's video is a parody of the industry she works in and no matter how cheap or basic her song sounds to some people, the fact is that it is a parody of what goes on and what goes on in that sphere of culture is cheap and basic and if one may call it downright crap! Therefore Allen's video and song and even the backing music track is accurate in its reflection and parodying of the cheap and nasty nature of the pop music industry and its wares.

With everyone from Lady Gaga and Rihanna to Beyonce and Miley Cyrus touting their bodies for money, both object and objectifier (if I may invent a new term) are equal partners in crime. It is not a question of racism it is a question of truth. Black female artists have long complained about being expected to strip down beyond decency to sell their music, in a way that the likes of Taylor Swift or Katy Perry aren't. Perhaps it's not such a bad thing that someone has spoken out about it in her own way regardless of how and regardless of her skin colour.