In the early 2010s, Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson aka Katy Perry was one of THE biggest names in pop culture. After a commercially unsuccessful debut in 2001 with a gospel record, it took Katy quite a while to get back on track. But in 2008, she finally managed to crack the formula and made it to the top of Billboard Hot 100 with her pop rock record ‘One of the boys’. Her third studio album, and first under Capitol Records had five singles that went number one; a feat only achieved by the king of Pop Michael Jackson himself. Even if you haven’t listened to the album in years, you will find yourself humming along to the familiar tunes of ‘California gurls’, ‘firework’, ‘Last Friday night’ and her many other hits; that’s how big she was.
But after more than a decade and some mediocre attempts of making a comeback, the question arises, “ Has she overstayed her welcome?” “ Has she lost her touch?” or Does the same formula not hold up anymore? And although I was never really invested enough to form an opinion about her, I just couldn’t help but be curious as to why the American Singer was being blatantly bullied on social media. So I decided to watch Katy’s music video for her latest single ‘Woman’s world’ to see if all the hate was just uncalled for and boy do I have something to say!
‘Sexy, confident, so intelligent’ – the perfect way to start a song meant to liberate women (Please note the sarcasm here). In all seriousness, the lyrics had no effort. It felt like the writers closed their eyes and threw a dart at a board with “feminist” buzzwords on it and made a song with whatever came up. Some random words thrown in over an overused dubstep beat , which is ironic because this song has six writers, four of which are men. Now don’t get me wrong; it’s not like men can’t write songs about women empowerment. But it’s disappointing to see the potential of these songwriters wasted on such a wacky, bizarre and superficial song on an important topic like this, when they have contributed in writing great songs for female artists like- Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez- who are essentially artists for “the girls and the gays”. The most disappointing part in all this is that one of the writers and producers of the song is Dr. Luke who is- an alleged and well-known sexual predator! Nothing says feminism louder than making a song with a sex offender, am I right?
Now, coming to the music video, my very first thought while watching it was that it feels like a pad commercial; painfully so. I remember watching those and feeling like I could go jump off a cliff and still come out alive if I wore a pad on my period. But in reality, even getting out of my bed felt worse than medieval torture. This video felt oddly reminiscent of that feeling.
Then for some odd reason Trisha Paytas makes a cameo? And there’s a random gay couple making out on the street? But to be fair, the music video is just as bizarre and superficial as the song so.. points for consistency I guess?
Katy mentioned in one of her Instagram posts that the video’s supposed to be sarcastic and a satirical attack on the male-gaze. But if this is her attempt at satire, I hate to break it to you Katy, you’re bad at it. Watching that poor woman fighting for her life to stay relevant, trying to preach her skewed feminist agenda, was painful to watch, to say the least.
But let’s not be too harsh, let’s give her the benefit of the doubt. In her words, in the first part of the video she addresses the male-gaze by catering to the male-gaze. Great! But then in the second part she claims to pull back from the male-gaze by also catering to the male-gaze? What is that about?
Because last I checked, sarcasm used to be a verbal passive-aggressive means to attack the opposition’s illicit act to reclaim the position of power. However, Katy’s version of sarcasm seems to do the exact opposite. With my face squinched from raw pain I managed to finish the video, only to be left with a steady feeling of disappointment at yet another millenial making an unpleasant effort at gen-Z humour.
My biggest issue with this song is- I don’t really understand the target audience for this song. Because let’s get this straight- the lyrics make it sound like it’s primarily for teenage girls, but the music video is obviously made for an adult audience?
Since it’s satirical (according to Katy) it’s meant to attack the patriarchy but it does so by belittling women instead of attacking the patriarchy? A good example in doing satire right would be the music video of her own contemporary Taylor Swift’s music video for “ The Man”.
Sure, “The Man” was also very superficial but at least it got the concept of satire right. While Taylor Swift is one of the biggest artists in the world right now, Katy Perry is barely managing to stay afloat.
Hence, the point is reaffirmed even more. So either Katy needs to keep track of her demographic or my brain is irreversibly fried from all the trash TV it consumes.
But for what it’s worth, putting the unsavoury lyrics and comical visuals away, the song itself is…okay at best. Is it a song you may repeatedly hear in retail stores? Yes. Is it an outdated and lousy imitation of Katy’s olden era? Sure. Akin to her recent projects like ‘Witness’ and ‘Smile’, ‘Woman’s World’ was- for lack of better words- unmarketable. The song dipped toes into safe waters by eluding experimental grounds and sticking strictly to ongoing trendy music; a modern take on Katy’s earlier pop classics if you will.
Now, pardon me if I’m wrong, but I fear that letting this line of thinking run free with or without the label of ‘satire’, can cause severe damages to the progress feminism has made. I understand the concept that ‘sex sells’ but it also cannot be negated that this century-old practice has further perpetuated the anti-feminist approach that the patriarchal body uses against women. This approach heavily stems from the idea that feminism is all about ‘freeing the nipple’ and acquiring undeserved accomplishments just because they’re ‘women’; when all this time we were screaming, shouting, begging for men to realise that women are more than just a pair of tits who don’t live for men’s fulfilment or to not be deprived of opportunities, fight for equal pay despite being equally as qualified, just because of our gender.
But for some reason the western media decided to double down on the concept of feminism being “vulgar’ and “incompetent” and said ‘Hey girl, you got a pair of tits? Well, lucky you!’.
Making art and art itself has consequences in the world that its made in, however small it may be. Making one song with ‘woman’ in the title makes you the poster child of feminism, sure, but woman-hating keyboard warriors will take every opportunity they can get to spew some chickenshit like – ‘why would we take you seriously when you can’t do that for yourselves?’– and to drive their point home they pull up the music video for Woman’s World.
I may have gone off on a tangent but for my final words, I’ll keep them short and sweet- Katy’s new era is just not it. Her futile attempts at being trendy are just boring and sad. The song overall is disastrous and the video is diabolical; a parodic portrayal of what an incel thinks feminism is. It’s counterproductive and in no way a representation of a woman’s world. But with her album releasing in less than a month , let’s just hope the other songs are not in any way tantamount to this or a cheap replica of her original pop classics. Otherwise, it would be very hard for Katy to beat the ‘peaked in high school” allegations after dropping a mediocre album yet again.