Lily Allen has a new video out called Hard Out Here. You may have seen people arguing about it. Here’s my take;
If Allen’s latest video is a political manifesto that we are to use as a guide for political action then it really is piss poor.
If, however, it is a pretty standard pop video then we might think it’s a rather good thing that it is clearly influenced by progressive ideals and is an open attack on “Blurred Lines”, the most reactionary popular song of recent times.
I certainly think the video draws on racist stereotypes in exactly the same way that is sadly de rigeur among the hippetty hoppers. We should be critical of that culture.
By expressing any progressive ideas Allen appears to have opened herself up to special criticism that those who never venture a left opinion will never be subjected to. It’s worth reflecting on whether what we feel like doing at any particular moment is always the most effective way of getting what we want.
In this case the left might want to collectively reflect on whether it wants to let off a huge klaxon to everyone in the public eye and out of it that if you ever express a left idea expect to be denounced to the heavens by the very people you sympathise with because they think you are too stupid to express a political opinion without becoming complicit in some holocaust level crime.