Rant: Katy Perry

Oh Katy Perry. Her songs ruled the summer of 2008. She has cute clothes and seems nice enough. She was raised in a very religious home. She made it okay for straight girls to kiss other girls while their boyfriends looked on. And I cannot stand her.

When I first heard her song "I Kissed a Girl” I was like, ‘Oh, well, that’s catchy and I guess it has a good message.’ How wrong I was. On closer examination of the lyrics it is actually a pretty terrible piece of pop. First the speaker has a boyfriend, thus kissing another person, girl or boy, is cheating. Which is fine if they have an open relationship, but that is never specified. Plus, I have a feeling if the girl was kissing a boy she would bet her boyfriend would mind it. This makes it seem like two girls kissing is silly and meaningless because it is of course all for male enjoyment.

“No, I don't even know your name,
It doesn't matter.
You’re my experimental game,
Just human nature.
It's not what good girls do,
Not how they should behave.
My head gets so confused,
Hard to obey.”

A few things here, aside from how no one should be reduced to a nameless “experimental game” it is fairly insulting and contradictory to say that something which is “just human nature” is also “not what good girls do, not how they should behave.”

This song is really getting to issues people have with bisexuality. To quote Dr. Alex Comfort (real name? I’m not sure) “All people are bisexual—that is to say, they are able to respond sexually to some extent towards people of either sex. How far people act bisexually depends on many things, including the society they live in, their opportunities, and how far the same-sex part of their response worries them.”

Also it is important to note that Perry (or whoever penned this) is sure to tell us she “had a drink in hand.” Clearly drugs and alcohol open people up to all sorts of things that they would not do otherwise. Or things that they want to do but need an excuse to do so. And while that is not necessarily a bad thing, it is something to be examined. In the media girls kissing is very much steeped in alcohol, A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, for example. I have been at parties where this song will come on and the guys will move to the sidelines so the ladies can kiss each other. I kid you not. This clip from the Tyra Show (I know, I know) explains it pretty well:

Later in the show a lesbian debates with the “barsexuals” about how their behavior makes her and her girlfriend be taken less seriously, which is a valid point when you think about how lesbianism in general is seen as something womenfolk do until the big, strong men come and sweep them off their feet.

This song is not nearly as bad as her other song “Ur So Gay,” which I will pick apart as well, but “I Kissed a Girl” does no favors for the confusing realm of bisexuality. One of the main reasons culture accepts women as bisexuals (at the same time questioning it’s legitimacy: “she just can’t find a boyfriend” or “she’s just really drunk”) is that it turns men on. But what if, I don’t know, Jack Johnson or Lil Wayne wrote a song called “I Kissed a Boy.” Would all these drunk, straight identified boys at parties make-out with each other and then coyly hope their girlfriends don’t mind it? I doubt it. If any popular male singer wrote such a song he would not be considered bisexual, bicurious or straight but drunk/ fun loving. He would be considered undoubtedly gay. Masculinity is a strict place to live in and there is a big double standard as far as bisexuality goes.

So, fine, she sang a stupid song, I’m okay with that. But for the The Advocate to recognize her as one of the people who did the most for the cause in 2008 when she has a song like “UR So Gay?” Terrible.

Embedding has been disabled, but please go watch the video. The song is about a girl who has fallen in love with a pretentious boy, and when she falls out of love with him she chides, “You’re so gay and you don’t even like boys.” She takes things that are stereotypical of the gay identity: “I hope you hang yourself with your H&M scarf
While jacking off listening to Mozart
You bitch and moan about LA
Wishing you were in the rain reading Hemingway
You don’t eat meat
And drive electrical cars
You’re so indie rock it’s almost an art” and puts a negative spin on them. And it seems that the only reason she dislikes this boy is that he has characteristics and interests she describes as “gay.” The song is saying that if you are a straight male, but you like things like makeup and vegetarianism then, oh, you must be gay. And according to the girl dating him, this is a very bad thing.

Also in the video she demasculinizes gay men when the Barbie doll version of herself pulls down the Ken doll’s pants to reveal the absence of genitalia. Because we all know gay men are basically women, right?

The GLBTQ community as more acceptance and prevalence in the media than ever, and of course not all of it is going to be positive. What irks me about Ms. Perry is that her songs are packaged as forward thinking, when right under the surface, they aren’t at all.