She's Still Not "Sheezus"

Maybe Lily Allen is still trying to prove she's learned her lesson from the controversy that surrounded her video for "Hard Out There". Her music video for "Air Balloon" was lighter and toned down by comparison and Allen's music video for "Sheezus" doesn't feature anyone but herself. Unlike "Air Balloon", however, there's nothing lighter and softer about "Sheezus". "Air Balloon" could have almost been considered boring, especially for a woman as outspoken as Allen, but she steered clear of that in "Sheezus" with a four minute acid trip that kind of detracted from her feminist message.

Lily Allen's idea of feminism has been a source of both criticism and skepticism for good reason. Whatever message she is trying to promote usually gets buried in her insistence on promoting it in the most offensive way possible. After all, the general theme of "Hard Out There" didn't cause anywhere near as much of a splash as the racist undertones in Lily Allen's music video for the single. "Sheezus" is a song that's supposed to be a play on the tendency of society to pit women against one another and if you only consider the lyrics then they're actually pretty deep.

I’m ready for all the comparisonsI think it’s dumb and it’s embarrassingI’m switching off, no longer listeningI’ve had enough of persecution and conditioning

The verse follows a chorus in which Allen sings of Rihanna, Beyoncé, Lorde, and Lady Gaga as her fellow competitors in the quest to be named some sort of lady messiah and actually lives up to Allen's previous statements that she wasn't trying to slight those artists with the song. "It’s completely the opposite of that... I’m saying that I want all of them to be Sheezus, and I want to be Sheezus too," Allen said to the Rolling Stone. Lyrically, she was right. That's exactly what she says.

In her video, however, Allen basically stands around for four minutes playing with the different color and image effects on a video editor. The psychedelic effect completely distracts from the actual song. Sure, it's exciting and it's interesting, but the song deserved a little better than for its message to be buried behind a gimmick. The video does nothing to compliment the song at all. Unless Allen was auditioning to play Mystique in the next remake of the X-Men franchise, then it's pretty superfluous.

Watch the video below.