Anonymous asked: did you read alice glass's comments on katy perry and the exploitation/sexualization of children nowadays? if so, do you agree with her sentiment? is a bra that shoots out whipped cream an image we should be broadcasting to children?
i mean, katy perry is like a mascot for rape culture. like, i like a bunch of her music and think she’s very talented and that a lot of really talented people do a lot of really good work on her records, but she’s an enthusiastic cheerleader for the rape culture that we all live in. i watched the katy perry movie awhile ago and when they were kind of telling the story of how she became a pop star they completely gloss over the fact that her and her team made the decision to break her as an artist by assembling the fucking justice league of pop songwriters (dr. luke AND max martin AND cathy dennis) to collectively discover the most profitable possible answer to the question “just how pornographic can we get on a top 40 song?”
i get a little miffed sometimes about all the “OMG HOW CAN YOU LIKE TAYLOR SWIFT” questions because correctly or incorrectly i kind of perceive katy perry to get a lot less scrutiny. like, in terms of lyrical content and commercial intent, “i kissed a girl” is pure evil. it’s one of the most offensive and unpleasant pop songs i’ve ever heard, and the fact that it became as successful as it did gives me a feeling that reminds me a little bit about how audience members at screenings of “django unchained” describe feeling when they hear someone else in the theater laughing inappropriately at the use of the n-word. like i’m not shitting on people for liking katy perry music, i like katy perry music, i loved “hot n cold” almost as much as i hated “i kissed a girl” and “ur so gay”, i’m just saying, the fact that i get people on here poring over taylor swift lyrics searching for any hint of anything that might resemble sexist or homophobic sentiment while no one ever seems to be sweating “i kissed a girl” or “ur so gay” weirds me out a little bit.
i think i read an article on the internet once that argued that people like lady gaga and katy perry are politically progressive figures even if their lyrical content is regressive because they look weird and therefore make pop culture a weirder and by extension “queerer” place than it would be otherwise. i think this is how a lot of people feel and i don’t like it at all, i remember hearing cornel west or someone like that say in a speech “not every republican is our enemy and not every democrat is our friend” and that really resonates with me because i feel strongly that it is messed up to make big sweeping decisions about whether or not someone has something valuable or interesting to say based on a totally superficial assessment of them
but anyway yeah i don’t really think there’s much of an argument to be had over whether or not we should expose kids to katy perry, like i don’t think exposure to katy perry is what is causing the rape culture, she is probably perpetuating it to some degree but you don’t get rid of it by getting rid of her and i don’t think alice glass was suggesting that, i think her thing is more just about trying to make people more aware of the fact that we live in a rape culture, and using very visible and very problematic public examples of the rape culture like katy perry is an effective way of doing that
