Fergie’s “M.I.L.F. $” Doesn’t Quite Re-Define The Word’s Meaning

As Fergie makes her triumphant return to the music scene after ten years since releasing her debut solo album The Dutchess, it’s clear that very little has changed in terms of her confidence level. “M.I.L.F. $” marks the first single since 2014’s “L.A. Love (la la),” and may or may not be one of the tracks from forthcoming Double Dutchess. Where Fergie fails, however, is in the aim to change the meaning of the acronym from “Mom I’d Like to Fuck” to “Mom I’d Like to Follow.” For, you see, something about Fergie’s own version of Stepford doesn’t exactly make this leap.

As an attractive but skittish (read: easily aroused) milkman drives through Milfville, the giant milk bottle at the top of his car reads Moms I’d Like to Follow underneath Milkman. But based on his lascivious and overwhelmed expression, it doesn’t seem like he’s interested in doing much “following.” Sizing up the residents of the town, the first truly famous MILF we’re introduced to is Chrissy Teigen breastfeeding her real life baby, Luna, followed by Amber Valletta sticking a sign in her front yard advertising her run for mayor of Milfville.

After his drive through the town, the video cuts to Fergie and her accompanying dancers wearing some not so matronly outfits at they dance at the Milf Spa and Fergie sings, “Heard you in the mood for a little milkshake, welcome to the dairy dutchess love factory.” Kim Kardashian soon joins in at the spa, bearing a quintessentially bored expression on her face as she attempts dancing with something like a kind of “abandon” that won’t stretch out her plastic body.

Elsewhere, Ciara joins Fergie for one of her more “hood” looks of the video, as the latter faux apologizes, “Didn’t mean to make you nervous, you motherfucker” (which, no, doesn’t quite serve to iterate Fergie’s desire to change the meaning of MILF). The Milf Spa set soon transitions to a perverse soda fountain (something Madonna already touched on aesthetically in the video for “True Blue”), with women dancing on poles inside of milkshakes and Fergie wearing a seemingly Katy Perry-inspired wig and a retro waitress outfit.

The last alteration in set design is the most cliche, putting Fergie as a teacher (of “nutrition”) in a classroom full of high school boys. This sort of puts the final nail in the coffin of Fergie doing the exact opposite of “empowering” both mothers and “older women.” Instead, she appears content to (breast)feed into all the usual stereotypes regarding this subject matter.

Moreover, by the time the video comes to a close, one wonders if the California Milk Processor Board and Goodby Silverstein & Partners might sue for ripping off their Got Milk? ad campaign. Then again, if no one’s filing a lawsuit against Kanye for “Famous,” surely Fergie is in the clear–just not for being a feminist.