On November 25, the debut video clip for “It’s a Woman Thang,” from Allee Willis and Holly Palmer’s EP “The Soul of Bubbles & Cheesecake” – became a YouTube “Featured Video.” 24 hours later, it’s amassed more than 300,000 views and become a flashpoint for a YouTube gender fracas.

Bubbles & Cheesecake are Willis and Palmer’s respective alter-egos, a free-spirited duo whose DIY, multi-media collaborations are based at www.bubblesandcheesecake.com, a hyper-interactive realm they launched last month.

The project evolved from a songwriting partnership between Allee Willis – a GRAMMY-winning, Emmy and Tony-nominated composer whose songs have sold over 50,000,000 records including Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” and “Boogie Wonderland,” the theme to Friends and the current Broadway musical The Color Purple (which also opens in Los Angeles December 13) – and singer-songwriter Holly Palmer, an LA favorite with several solo albums to her credit and most recently a vocalist with Gnarls Barkley’s live band.

YouTube Link

When the duo saw the video’s whopping YouTube numbers, they thought it was a mistake, as their views had increased steadily – but gradually—since the clip’s posting. “We had no idea this was coming,” said Palmer. “It’s actually a very Bubbles & Cheesecake thing that it happened this way.”

Even more unexpected, the video – an exuberant backyard soul groove celebrating self-empowerment – has incited an online gender war among YouTube users, drawing intensely heated posts – both anti-female and anti-male – from commentators of both sexes.

“This was written purely as a pop soul song; not at all political,” says Willis. “It does talk about how sometimes women have trouble standing up for themselves, but it’s really about self-esteem for everyone – about having enough of a sense of yourself to claim what’s right for you.”