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.
Showing posts with label Katy Perry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Katy Perry. Show all posts
Jun 16, 2011
Aug 3, 2009
Singing to Turn Back the Time
Sometimes, songs are like mini-time machines.
When I, as most people do, hear certain songs, it instantly zips me back in time. I experienced this very vividly last night.
As usual, I couldn't sleep, so I turned to my trusty ipod to entertain my restless brain until it decided to let me sleep. The first song that came pouring from the headphones to flood my weary head was "I'm Still Breathing" by Katy Perry. Instantly, it was last summer, and I was lying in approximately the same position in my bed, but my headphones were plugged up to side of my cd player.
I'd just spent the day with my dad and grandmother in her town, shopping. It had been an above-average day. It had been a long time since the three of us, a multigenerational group, had been together without the pressures of the rest of the family. These two are perhaps my two favorite people in the world, and if you add them up, you get roughly myself. We laughed and had more fun in a Sam's, a pool store, and a furniture place than anybody ever should. At the furniture store, a distant acquaintance of my grandma's attacked us, desperate for a sale. Dad and I laughed, sipping on the free Cokes in glass bottles that you get upon entering the store, as Grandma tried to keep the persistent sales lady at bay.
At Sam's, we impulsively purchased a gigantic jar of pickles that still remains in our fridge. Mom gawked at it for weeks, cursing our sillyness and love of pickles.
At Target, we inconvenienced the sales people to the point where we thought we'd have to make a great escape before they tied us up in the back with packing tape and price stickers and leave us for dead because Grandma tried on every knee brace in the store, leaving a trail of open packages and frustrated employees in her wake. She didn't even buy one. One girl ran the length of the store in pursuit of a tape measure that turned out unnecessary. We only found this abundantly funny, but she probably didn't.
After that long day of shopping and bonding, I couldn't sleep when I got home. Eager to listen to the new CD I'd gotten at Target, I popped it into my CD player since I didn't want to go through the trouble of turning on my computer to put it on my ipod. I used the headphones as not to awake the rest of the household.
Now every time I hear any Katy Perry song, I remember that day with my grandma and father. The events that took place probably seem mundane to anyone else, but to me it meant a lot. I'm glad I have this sort of mental soundtrack to take me back whenever I wish to relive it.
When I, as most people do, hear certain songs, it instantly zips me back in time. I experienced this very vividly last night.
As usual, I couldn't sleep, so I turned to my trusty ipod to entertain my restless brain until it decided to let me sleep. The first song that came pouring from the headphones to flood my weary head was "I'm Still Breathing" by Katy Perry. Instantly, it was last summer, and I was lying in approximately the same position in my bed, but my headphones were plugged up to side of my cd player.
I'd just spent the day with my dad and grandmother in her town, shopping. It had been an above-average day. It had been a long time since the three of us, a multigenerational group, had been together without the pressures of the rest of the family. These two are perhaps my two favorite people in the world, and if you add them up, you get roughly myself. We laughed and had more fun in a Sam's, a pool store, and a furniture place than anybody ever should. At the furniture store, a distant acquaintance of my grandma's attacked us, desperate for a sale. Dad and I laughed, sipping on the free Cokes in glass bottles that you get upon entering the store, as Grandma tried to keep the persistent sales lady at bay.
At Sam's, we impulsively purchased a gigantic jar of pickles that still remains in our fridge. Mom gawked at it for weeks, cursing our sillyness and love of pickles.
At Target, we inconvenienced the sales people to the point where we thought we'd have to make a great escape before they tied us up in the back with packing tape and price stickers and leave us for dead because Grandma tried on every knee brace in the store, leaving a trail of open packages and frustrated employees in her wake. She didn't even buy one. One girl ran the length of the store in pursuit of a tape measure that turned out unnecessary. We only found this abundantly funny, but she probably didn't.
After that long day of shopping and bonding, I couldn't sleep when I got home. Eager to listen to the new CD I'd gotten at Target, I popped it into my CD player since I didn't want to go through the trouble of turning on my computer to put it on my ipod. I used the headphones as not to awake the rest of the household.
Now every time I hear any Katy Perry song, I remember that day with my grandma and father. The events that took place probably seem mundane to anyone else, but to me it meant a lot. I'm glad I have this sort of mental soundtrack to take me back whenever I wish to relive it.
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