Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines video has received a lot of criticism of objectifying women but the video's director, a female herself, defended it on Wednesday.

Diane Martel - who has directed music videos for such artists as Mariah Carey, Beyonce and Justin Timberlake - said that she actually intended for the video to empower women.

"I wanted to deal with the misogynist, funny lyrics in a way where the girls were going to overpower the men," Martel revealed. "Look at Emily Ratajkowski's performance; it's very, very funny and subtly ridiculing. That's what is fresh to me. It also forces the men to feel playful and not at all like predators."

The video features Thicke and collaborators Pharrell and T.I. staring at several scantily-clad (and in many cases nude) women. Martel noted that those women were directed to look into the camera, which she said was intentional so that they would demand attention.

"They do it most of the time; they are in the power position," she explained. "I don't think the video is sexist. The lyrics are ridiculous, the guys are silly as f---. That said, I respect women who are watching out for negative images in pop culture and who find the nudity offensive, but I find [the video] meta and playful."

When Thicke posted the uncensored video on his Facebook page, he was flooded with angry comments from fans saying they were "offended" and "disgusted" by it.

The Blurred Lines song itself, whose "rapey" lyrics were discussed by online critics, has remained at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for three consecutive weeks. The song sold 424,000 downloads over the week of June 26, the most for any song over the course of one week this year.

Watch the censored video posted on YouTube here:

Tags: robin thicke