Critique of Lilly Allen’s “Hard Out Here” music video

 "Hard Out Here" music video

Although Lily Allen is trying to promote feminism and dismiss the objectification of women and disdain the standard set for women about their bodies., the music video certainly does not suit the lyrics of the song. For example when she says “Don’t need to shake my ass for you cause I’ve got a brain” yea in the music video there are several close-ups of a woman’s behind which completely goes against what she was aiming to say.

The music video itself starts out with Lily Allen being judged for her weight, she is lying on a operating table getting a liposuction because they judged her for being over weight, although she is not. Also within the song she says, “if you’re not a size six, then you’re not good looking” stating that women have expectations of their body in order for them to be seen as attractive.

A very obvious insult to all women that does not reflect well on the concept Lily was trying to pursue, is that she refers to women as ‘b*tches’ instead of women or girls or ladies.

“ [Chorus:]
It's hard, it's hard, it's hard out here for a bitch
It's hard for a bitch (for a bitch) for a bitch,
It's hard
It's hard out here for a bitch
It's hard for a bitch (for a bitch) for a bitch,
It's hard
It's hard out here”

Although the lyrics do a very good job defending women and dismissing their objectification and standards, the music video is completely in contradiction of that, in fact it is quite the opposite.

FOA Reflection

My further oral activity aimed to answer the question “what do advertisements reveal about our society?” and I based it on advertisements that objectified women and argued that society belittles and degrades women throughout the media and in general. I feel like the content of the advertisements I found was very appropriate to the topic at hand, although I did have difficulties presenting in front of the class and I unfortunately did not do as well as I did when I was on my own. Although I think I was successful at meeting the certain requirements for the advertisements that I was presenting. Looking at the criteria my biggest weakness was not organizing my time well throughout the actual presentation; I did not meet the timing requirements. Based on the criteria a few strengths I had were that the ads I chose contained a lot of language, language takes up a big part of the marking scheme so I am satisfied with the information I presented about the language. Throughout this activity I learned that ads play a big role in the objectification of women in society. In terms of the presentations, I also developed better skills to help me present in future FOA’s and IOC’s, such as the use of claims and ethos pathos and logos, that I had forgotten in my presentation. I’ve also learned how to better organize my time to meet the certain requirements.