Much hay has been made of late about Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” ( no link to your site from my page, you singer of evil odes ).1
First, is there anyone who doesn’t see this as cynical posturing? Could it be anything but a display to rankle the Conservative Establishment (tm) as a means to guaranteed exposure and sales? After the faux-lesbianism that was t.A.t.U, after the question was explored by Tina Fey and even Roseanne Barr, I can’t believe there’s enough moral outrage left in this issue to squeeze out into that nectar most irresistible to the profit-pollenating bees of controversy. But even when you run out of Christian conservatives, you still have at least two huge sects wherein this sort of thing is haraam-enough to generate sales.
The song is evil because it celebrates using people.
Opines “Perry”:
I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry chap stick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don’t mean I’m in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it
I liked itNo, I don’t even know your name
It doesn’t matter,
You’re my experimental game
Kissing is a special activity whether your proclivities bend to the gay or straight ( whatever those terms really mean ). In said act the kissed feels special, magical, and the kisser feels a different, but equally important magic.
But for “Perry” this act, described supra, has no magic. Showing absolute disregard for the basis of Kantian-Christian ethics, her experience categorizes her “other” as a thing, a tool, a means to an end and not a person per se.
If we changed the words “a girl” and made the singer a man would any of these formulations be tolerated?
- I kissed a fat chick … she’s [you’re] my experimental game
- I kissed a black chick … she’s [you’re] my experimental game
- I kissed a married guy … he’s [you’re] my experimental game
- I kissed a deaf / blind / retarded girl … he’s [you’re] my experimental game
No, they wouldn’t and damn right; they celebrate a selfish paragon of arrant douchebaggery. Close your eyes and imagine the “churlish frat daddy on Spring break” singing the first one and then high-fiving his ’bro as the “fat chick”, heart full of the “ohmygod he actually thought I was the cute one this time”, came up behind the conversation just in time to get her fragile emotional vessel crushed.2 Gets your dander up, no?
Yet because of the cultural infatuation with the Sapphic taboo — especially if they’re young, nubile, and have silky hair like Portia de RossiGeneres — we let unbounded selfishness get a pass. This is wrong.
“The girl” in question was a person and this song completely ignores that. She might have been in the midst of a sexual identity crisis as well and that kiss was meaningful to her, now it’s a cheap game for some self-centered, meretricious, attention-whore.
Selfish bitch.
As if celebrating using people wasn’t evil enough, the song furthers a pernicious form of misogyny: the misogyny perpetrated by the female upon female for the titillation of the heterosexual, male, buying public. The song is celebrating using people to make yourself rich.
Can you even fathom the outrage of a Toofer-from-“30 Rock”-type singing a song about how he wheedled a black woman in the ’hood into a cutthroat loan so he could make his bonus target and get a trip to Tahiti? We’d not stand for it under those conditions, why now?
“I wheedled a hood mom her mortgage / Love the bling on my pinky … What? How dare you judge me
What’s next?
I kicked an old man down the stairs
His medicare check will buy me Prada
I’m put in mind of the stories of the slaves on the ol’ plantation who would rat out slaves planning escape to ’massa as a means for advancement. Cozying-up to ’massa netted succor but did so at the expense of perpetuating a morally reprehensible institution and at the expense of a fellow victim subjugated by said evil institution.
I recall Liz Phair once being called the proponent of “do-me feminism” ( i.e. “women have the right to be sexually active and not be judged differently for the act than men” ). “Perry” is the proponent of fuck-you feminism: “the movement’s dead, I’m looking out for number one, and i’ll put my stiletto heels in the back of as many sisters as I need until I get my ducets — hey sister, at least one of us is advancing.”
Selfish sell-out.
And while the misogyny and the using make the song evil, it doesn’t make it bad. No, that comes courtesy of the internally inconsistent messages within the song itself. While “Perry” is contemplating how nice it has been to baselessly use another human being, later she has the temerity to sing:
Us girls we are so magical
Soft skin, red lips, so kissable
Hard to resist so touchable
Too good to deny it
Ain’t no big deal, it’s innocent
Now while it’s certainly not Shelley, the sentiment here is something that most sexes can recognize as part of the beauty of the feminine form. And “Perry”, I am so with you the first 5 lines of your bridge, but the last one, double negative aside, says that “your game” is “innocent”.
I do not think that word means what you think it means
No, it’s anything but innocent! It’s tawdry and mean. Here’s the worst I’ll say about it, it’s as mean as “In the Company of Men” and that’s about as mean as it gets.
Lastly, Perry’s look is impinging on Zooey Deschanel territory and I don’t like any singers of such hateful material approximating the sweet look of my dear, sweet, blue saucer-eye Zooey - HULK SMASH!
Original: Talented singer and actor Zooey Deschanel
Bad Copy: Possible misogynist and misanthrope “Perry”
I mean really, the look, it’s Zooey’s, stop copying just stop it, stop it, stop it.
In any case, the song is pure evil, and it’s bad, and it, of course, is a hit.3
UPDATE: I left a comment at YouTube under Perry’s video giving a precis of these points and it appears to have been removed. I suppose the clip owner “CapitolRecords” likes controversy about gay or not or tolerant or not, but can’t brook an actual criticism. “Is it OK to be a lesbian” they like being asked, but “is it OK to be a douche of a human being” is too hot to handle, or too inconvenient when you’re making mad money selling the controversy.
Footnotes
1. I say “Perry” because I don’t know if this is actually Ms. Perry’s thought, or if this is the results of some calculated wordsmith who realized that cheap lesbian titillation would sell records. Thus this is the Perry as portrayed by the factual Perry singing the song, versus the factual Perry herself, who may well be a perfectly lovely person — although her taste in material is suspect in either case. “Perry” refers to the singer of the song and Perry refers to actual singer and human. Back
2. Just a quick note, I have only known 2 people in my life in fraternities in any intimate way. One was is my friend who is a thoroughly decent gentleman in Dallas. The other was a guy who was on a project with me my senior year who was kinda flakey. I admit, I’m playing to stereotype here. On the other hand, I’ve heard enough Spring Break stories to think there’s a germ of truth lurking about. Back
3. A culture as bankrupt as this deserves George W. Bush for a president. Back
Ubi sunt qui nos ad civitatem virtutis ducere possunt? O tempora, O mores!
August 20th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
i wonder if she kissed Jill Sobule?
August 20th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
My original draft of this had mention of the Sobule song and video, but it was unwieldy in text. At least in that song there’s the implication that Sobule actually likes the girl. As the implication goes: “It was just like kissing me, only better.”
August 20th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I don’t think its good to experiment on people based on my understanding of what good is.
I do admit to being young and dumb and experimenting on people. I messed up a lot of people trying to figure myself out.
Not saying its right, nor endors-able, just something I have experienced.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:18 am
A fair point Mr. Mice, we all have those people we should have treated better. Perhaps my voice is the one of experience that says “you’ll regret doing wrong to decent people who didn’t deserve to be the experiment you carried out.”
August 21st, 2008 at 11:00 pm
I think your criticism is fair and it is funny (what, like a clown !?!?!). I do regret my experiments, and furthermore I do think it is wrong.
Pop music, like movies have a hard time condemning anything as any subject mentioned in them is glamorized. Maybe punk-ized would be a more current term since everything is steam-punk, victorian-punk, and whatnot.
Really I doubt the scriber of this song is thinking about these things so much, I think the idea of the song was to be sorta college lesbian, which is so much cooler than being straight these days. Plus everyone loves those cute college lesbians, guys, girls everyone.
It does undermine the gay thing though in a Will and Grace sort of insidious way. This is the way our culture works. Reject, persecute, co-opt, water down, discard. It is disgusting but that is the culture we love and feel like we are a part of. It is so Marshall McLuhan it hurts. Even he would be shocked how right he was.
But to your point, you can experiment, but you will regret it. I think is a valid one. I wish I could take back a lot of what I said and did. Would I be a better person for it now though? More like the subject of a Science Fiction movie than anything else. Do the ends justify the means? Never. Are kids cruel? Of course.
Everyone is horrible and sadistic until they themselves experience what it feels like to have your heart squished till it pops like a nasty calzone. Well, at least that was had to happen to me.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:40 pm
where do all of the cute college lesbians go? the only ones that my wife and i see when we go out in public are the older, short and stocky, men’s haircut and Timberland boot variety.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:04 pm
@SB: I believe commedienne Sandra Berhardt called those “LUGS”: Lesbians Until Graduation. She opined that there was no male equivalent, a beat, “Oh wait, they’re called fraternities”. That would explain your non-exposure: their half-lives are too short.
@Mice: Well said and thanks for sharing — I suppose the cruelty and the cheap commercialism of it all really got to me, it looks like you’re echoing the same sentiments.
August 26th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I can’t belive when you are wasting all your time writing about a song that you think is “evil”. It’s hilarious!
It’s just a song about kissing. So what if she kissed a girl, there is many more girl that have done it. When treyr drunk or if theyr lesbian but why does is matter. ;S
You have waaay to much sparetime. Maybe you should go out sometime and meet some nice onenightstand!
August 27th, 2008 at 3:52 am
Elin,
As English is not your first language, let me say plainly: I certainly agree with you. I could care less if it was a song about men kissing men, women kissing women, or women kissing pigs. For me “evil” is not defined by the ( horrors! ) homosexual subtext.
RATHER
Insofar as one person celebrates using another human, that’s where evil, in my opinion begins. Such is the content of this entire post.
The narrator celebrates using another person for her exploration. In much the same way that I do not approve of using someone to explore one’s one sexual identity, I don’t support using your parents for free room and board, nor do I support using a girlfriend for her cool car, nor do I support using someone for free drinks.
And I don’t need a 1-nighter, my intelligent and beautiful girlfriend satisfies me, and she’s wicked at the Charleston.
September 5th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Dear Steven,
I read your blog/column while I was doing research for a letter I am writing to the local radio station on behalf of my organization (I work for a sexual violence organization). I wanted to commend you for looking deeper into this offensive song. I believe this song deepens the confusion most young people already find themselves engrossed in. This conduct suggested in this song creates a carte blanche attitude to sexuality, which is an issue our youth struggle with already due to suggestive content in the media. They are bombarded with images and music that tell them it is okay to, as you said, use other people. The problem is the song doesn’t continue on with another verse on how it could have been more confusing and detrimental to her to be engaging in this kind of conduct. I want to state that I am not against homosexuality, just the national promotion of self-destructive behavior. Bravo!
[edited for typo–sgh]