Admittedly, I was mildly excited when I heard Lily Allen had a new song out. åÊThough I’m not her biggest fan, I do appreciate her songwriting and cheeky lyrics even if her musicality isn’t the most original or riveting.

The video starts with Allen on an operating table getting liposuction or some sort of fat-reducing surgery, as a record exec (decidedly white and male in an important-looking suit) hounds her for gaining weight. From the start, I can guess that this song will be some sort of statement about women in the music industry, perhaps an attempt at being an appropriate feminist anthem.

However, there’s a certain dissonance between the music video and the song lyrics. As Allen sings bitingly about being objectified and the physical perfection pushed on female musicians, she uses black women’s bodies as props and continues to objectify their bodies as she puts herself at a distance. Cries of parody and irony have come to the defense of the video but honestly, if you’re trying to comment on sexism in the industry, why use the very common symbol of the “twerking girl” that objectifies black women? And why isn’t Allen herself twerking and wearing a revealing one-piece suit like her background dancers? She is fully covered and stands alone in a sea of writhing bodies. If you notice the camera focus as well, you’ll see that that the bodies of these dancers are dissected, just showing moments of jiggling butts as if the worth of these women was solely in their bodies and not in their beings.

The lyrics are also one-sided. While Allen sings about double standards – “If I told you ‘bout my sex life / you’d call me a slut / When boys talk about their b**ches / no one’s making a fuss” – she also degrades women who do choose to dance a particular way – “Don’t need to shake my a** for you ‘cause I’ve got a brain.” While she may have a particular view on how women should act, it’s unfair to sing about other women who may not share this same viewpoint.

It’ll be interesting to see how her comeback fairs against new releases from female artists such as Haim, Charli XCX and Yuna. In creating a parody of pop music today, Allen ends up creating a song that – while the lyrics may be different and original – sounds too familiar and overdone that it will be overshadowed by more musically complex songs already on rotation.

Read More:

Is Lily Allen’s New Music Video as Progressive as the Internet Says?

Lily Allen does not represent all feminism ‰ÛÒ and nor should she

Music Videos Exploiting Black Women’s Bodies

Can the White Girl Twerk?