Katy Perry’s long-awaited return to music is here, four years after her last album 'Smile'. And some of us wish she’d not quit her day job on American Idol. Here's why.
ADVERTISEMENTKaty Perry’s new single, ‘Woman’s World’, is touted as a feminist anthem. If this is the shape of things to come when it comes to empowerment, someone set up an intervention, because Perry needs all the help she can get.
Her single features lines like “Sexy, confident / So intelligent / She is heaven-sent / So soft, so strong” and “It’s a woman’s world and you’re lucky to be livin’ in it / You better celebrate / ‘Cause baby, we ain’t goin’ away.”
It is accompanied by a video which has to be seen to be believed, featuring Rosie the Riveter visuals, bottles labelled “Whiskey For Women”, monster trucks, vibrators and bedazzled power tools.
Put simply: it’s a disaster, a pandering and regressive pseudo-empowerment anthem, whose faux-feminist message rings false at every turn.
It has been profusely panned online, and while it does feel like one of those songs that tanks an artist’s reputation – along the same lines as Robin Thicke’s misguided ‘Get Her Back’ or Avril Lavigne’s insulting cultural appropriation with her hyper-stereotyped attempt to cash in on Japanese culture with ‘Hello Kitty’ - the internet can be a cruel place. Maybe one misconceived track from the “Queen of Camp” shouldn’t necessarily warrant the digital lashings courtesy of trial by X?
Also, a godawful video accompanying a similarly atrocious song is hardly surprising from Perry, as evidenced by her 2017 single ‘Swish Swish’. Prior to that song, she was a dominant force in pop music. Afterwards, it was clear the creative spark had gone, especially when watching the cringeworthy video crammed with celebrity cameos and deeply embarrassing attempts to cash in on latest trends.
So, no one could have been completely surprised by the shitnanigans of ‘Woman’s World’.
However, Perry hasn’t helped her case by eroding some benefit-of-the-doubt goodwill by retroactively revealing that the music video for her new single is meant to be satire.
She did so in behind-the-scenes footage in which she explains her new music video.
Warning: Set your perineum to ‘Cringe’ mode.
“We’re being a bit sarcastic with it,” she explained in a video posted to social media this weekend. “It’s very slapstick, very on the nose. And with this set, it’s like we, ooh, we’re not about the male gaze, but we really are about the male gaze. And we’re really overplaying it, which is like a reset for me, and a reset for my idea of the feminine divine.”
If you’re wondering whether your spleen is still intact because the secondhand mortification you felt watching that video may have created some internal organ lacerations, you’re only human. And we feel you.
As for the satire explanation / excuse? No one put it better than satirist Krang T. Nelson, who noted of Perry’s explanation: “One of the hallmarks of great satire is when you release a long follow up video that explains in detail specifically how you are being satirical and why you chose to do it.”
Whether you tolerate the song, can handle people who don’t understand that if you have to explain the joke then said joke didn’t land, or buy the satire angle or not, there’s one element that should damn this song to pop hell. Something that is deserving of scrutiny: the person behind the song.
You see, Perry collaborated with Dr. Luke on 'Woman’s World’.
ADVERTISEMENTFor those of you who don’t know, have forgotten, or who have opted for sanity because there are enough terrible men out there in the world to not retain all their names, record producer Łukasz Gottwald, known as Dr. Luke, worked on Perry’s first three albums. He helmed many of her hits like 'I Kissed a Girl', 'Teenage Dream', and 'Roar'.
These songs and albums were released before Gottwald was sued by Kesha in 2014. The singer alleged that he drugged and sexually assaulted her in 2005, as well as physically and verbally tormented her for a decade.
Gottwald has not been charged with a crime, and has denied all of Kesha’s allegations. He filed a defamation lawsuit against her, and accused her of having fabricated allegations she was raped to get out of her recording contract.
The two ended up settling the defamation lawsuit last year.
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It’s hard not to see the inherent contradiction and hypocrisy of releasing an upcoming album - ‘143’, scheduled for 20 September - about female empowerment while working with an alleged abuser. It rather negates the message, a lot more than a video trying to reclaim female sexual agency through the use of blow-up dolls.
Many were quick to call Perry out on the collaboration.
“I’m sorry but I can’t listen to any new Katy Perry song that is written and/or produced by Dr Luke,” one person wrote on X.
“I don’t like Dr Luke for many reasons and I just can’t personally support his career. I’m sorry Katy but I am very disappointed,” another user posted.
ADVERTISEMENTActress Abigail Breslin didn’t name Perry or Gottwald but tagged Kesha in a post that read: “I’m just saying... working with known abusers in any industry just contributes to the narrative that men can do abhorrent shit and get away with it. On another note, I love @KeshaRose and she gave one of the best shows I’ve ever been to last year – stream Kesha!”
Breslin later said she received death threats for that post.
Even if ‘Woman’s World’ wasn’t a paint-by-numbers #GirlBoss dud and didn’t sound like the lyricists only recently discovered what a woman with agency was by having feminism explained to them from some pencil-scribbled notes on the back of a stamp, there’s no fixing the unpleasant sense of icky hypocrisy surrounding this single.
And when you look at pop in 2024, there’s something truthful about empowerment through personal statements that know what they’re saying. From Charli XCX to Camila Cabello, via Taylor Swift andDua Lipa, there’s something genuine about the messaging. Whether you adhere to the music or not.
ADVERTISEMENTThere's nothing of the sort with 'Woman's World'.
2024 has space for fun pop with no pretentions to comment about society. However, if you are going to comment and mess up the message via: a rubbish tune; outdated visuals with all the sexualized women in the video sharing a similar body type and the whole thing feeling like an SNL sketch from 2010; far-fetched attempts at critic-proof “Oh but you just didn’t get the satire” justifications; and on top of all of that, hiring an alleged predator to helm your apparently feminist anthems... Then good luck for your September release.
This is less “feminine divine” and more tasteless caricature.
