A cupcake dress can be misleading. A candy-cotton scented auditorium filled with girls wearing cherry printed short shorts, bright red lipstick, blue wigs and bare mid-drifts can give you the wrong impression. Sugary sweet pink decorations, trimmed in lollipops and gummy bears and poofy-skirted back-up dancers might make you think Katy Perry is just another air-headed poptart of a musician.
But she isn't. Underneath the Willy Wonka aesthetic and shimmery sequin wardrobe, there's a message. Katy's kinda political.
Some parents might be outraged as their children sing "Are you brave enough to let me see your peacock?/Don't be a chicken, boy, stop acting like a beeotch/I'ma peace out if you don't give me the payoff/Come on baby, let me see/what you're hiding underneath." But hundreds of male musicians produce entire albums about coaxing the clothes off "shorty" and leaving if they don't get the "pay off." Katy's one of the few women who are singing about getting guys to drop their pants instead of the other way around. Why shouldn't women be allowed to embrace sexuality like the men? While she prances around on the stage in a purple leotard and peacock feathers, Katy's not-so-subtly telling women they can play the boys' game. Maybe ten year old girls shouldn't be saying "beeotch," but they are empowered, allowed to embrace what the men have always been allowed to express.
A lot of Katy's songs have feminist undertones. "Pearl" is pretty blatant; it tells the story of a girl repressed by a commandeering man who eventually learns to break free. "Circle the Drain" tells off a deadbeat boyfriend more interested in drugs than his girlfriend.
I like Katy Perry because she can sing about being your own strong woman while wearing a shiny tight catsuit. And pull it off. You don't have to choose between being a pin-up "teenage dream" and a feminist. Katy Perry is both without even really trying.
She may have kissed a girl just cause she loves them so much.
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