Katy Perry’s songs are produced to sound like Pop Rocks and taste like Orange Crush. While her songs messages lack intellectual merit, the production quality of her videos have actually been beyond impressive, though always candy sweet. Until now, the fiercest thing she’s done in a video is whipped cream and flames from her breasts.
In her latest video, Part of Me, Perry cuts her hair, tapes down her breasts, paints her face and joins the Marines. In an interview with MTV she says:
It’s an affirmation of strength, so I wanted to go the strongest route I ever could. Literally, I was like, ‘I’m gonna join the service. I’m gonna join the Marines.’
I wanted to celebrate this video, I really did. Besides it being a blatant PR piece for pro-war America, I wanted to be happy about a visual message showing a strong, hardworking women supporting a cause they believe is just but the whole message is rooted in 2nd wave feminism. And she was so close with this video, so close.
Did she hit or miss?
But the narrative completely falls apart in the first scene. Perry only joins the Marines because a dude breaks her heart. She trades her pink cotton dresses for commando boots as a way to overcome pain of a a cheating boyfriend. To prove her strength she pursues something that’s a predominantly male activity and outside of something the main character’s desire.
Second wave feminism looks at sex and gender norms asking for equal parts of the same pie, essentially protesting stereotypes about women imposed by men. Whereas third wave, in this case, ought to seek a different pie all together and motivate actions outside of the gendered ideals from the beginning.
Does all the power she think she holds actually still belong to her ex-man? Challenge me on this one. How would the video’s message be different if she had chosen to join the Marines she believed in serving her country not her broken heart? So close, Katy. So close.
But she got some things right. Perry three days of intense training at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base in Oceanside, California to get her flips, jabs and underwater wrestling right. Minus the b-roll of her prancing under the flag like a country star (which is actually quite fitting), the color schemes, the angles and shots, the costuming are done quite artistically and thoughtfully.
What Katy Perry’s does well
It’s not popular in my community to like Katy Perry. Which means we don’t spend much time queuing up her videos on youtube. But they execute the philosophies of artistic (versus technological) remedation exceedingly well [Bolter & Grusin, MIT Press, and an excellent read].
In her videos we see cultural icons and old media imagery better than anything I’ve seen from pop media in the last decade and the production value is sky high compared to a Bieber video. Let’s look at her production team’s work:
California Gurls brings Candyland and, Willy Wonka, Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz new life.
Teenage Girl, maybe the best video of them all, is no question a homage to the part of the 80s era that her fans are just a few years too young to actually remember the epic teenager tale 16 Candles or the social makeover Cher gave Ty in Clueless.