“I Kissed a Girl”

by Katy Perry

(Capitol)

Of course we should have seen Sarah Palin coming. All we had to do
was look at the music charts. Which song dominated American radio
airplay this summer? Not M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” despite the deserved
critical excitement when it jumped into the top five on the back of
Pineapple Express; not Miley Cyrus; not the Jonas Brothers; and
not even Coldplay. It was Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl,” a
pseudofeminist exploitation number whose cynicism has been topped this
year only by the RNC.

Perry is an ex-Christian singer who has seized the main chance. “I
Kissed a Girl” marries an overbearing glam-rock
shuffle-stomp—think of Gary Glitter’s “Rock & Roll Part 2”
with the beat audibly fraying at the edges, as if the producers figured
the only way to reach America’s heart was to pulverize—with
Perry’s shrill singing, which seems less rooted in a musical style than
a personality type. Forget about lesbian until graduation; Perry is a
lesbian until the camera switches off—the loudest girl in the
Girls Gone Wild infomercial. Each to her own, but she sounds so
robotic it’s hard to sense much in the way of human impulse there.

The lyrics just make it worse. She kisses a girl—sure, okay.
She likes it—um, and? Oh, and she hopes her boyfriend
doesn’t mind, because sexual autonomy is inextricable from the male
gaze, and that’s fucking awesome. “I Kissed a Girl” is
infuriatingly ass-backward: cynical adherence to outdated values made
into titillation, snide calculation dressed up as the underdog, the
same old bullshit disguised as rebellion.

Those traits have dominated recent election news. Writing in
Salon about why Palin gives her nightmares, Rebecca Traister
could have been describing “I Kissed a Girl”: “What Palin so
seductively represents… is a form of feminine power that is utterly
digestible to those who have no intellectual or political use for
actual women. It’s like some dystopian future… feminism without any
feminists.” What’s worse is that people are falling for it, mistaking a
pat on the head for progress. It takes a nation of Katy Perrys to hold
us back. recommended

17 replies on “It’s a Hit”

  6. I see the point, maybe don’t feel the same ire. I mean, in the long run, and maybe this is because I’m just effing old, but both the Palin thing and the drunk “straight” girls kissing to turn on men thing are unmistakable marks of progress, whatever else they are: You couldn’t imagine a Top 40 hit like this even 20 years ago, and as for Palin, now O’Reilly has to forever shut up about judging parents for their teens’ pregnancies, Republicans have to be less overtly sexist in general (their defense of her balacing motherhood and work is a pretty epic moment), and hey, America gets to notice Alaska for a minute. I feel extremely grudging admiration for McCain’s recognition that politics is popular culture to some extent. That he’s working it for the Republicans, to their ends, is unsettling, but he’s also helping make permanent the changing landscape he’s exploiting. I don’t hear the song as evil, just as opportunistic as so much other great pop.

  7. Jill Sobule did it better 10 years ago – although I guess that prooves your point since it wasn’t a ‘mainstream top 40’ hit.

    I think a lot of the success of that Katy Perry song is due to a really weak summer for catchy pop tunes. I predict “Say Hey” by Michael Franti & Spearhead will soon fill that void.

  8. Lame video also. no actual kissing, just mimed labia licking (thus “taste of her cherry” is not about chapstick). And why is this? Because, as one can see in the last shot, it was all a dream!

    In this way feminism is recast in a way that is acceptable-to-the-petit bourgeoisie. Just like the choice (hah!) of Sarah Palin.

    Psychoanalytically, this song is a negation.

    Hi Charles.

  9. I volunteer at Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls in New York, and during the “Media Awareness” workshop we discuss the song’s lyrics (among other forms of non girl-friendly media) and how they play into stereotypes. The workshop leaders also asked them to compare the Gossip’s “Standing in the Way of Control.”

  11. I completely disagree wiith what you said. Why all the hating on Katy Perry? Yeah, it could be taken a drunk straight girl trying to get attention, OR it could be about a girl who was confused about her sexuality and alcohol gave her the courage to experiment. Even if it about a straight girl, it doesn’t sound at all like she’s trying to impress anyone, it sounds like she’s worried about what her boyfriend- which btw is a legitimate concern. If you’re in a relationship and you make out w/ someone else, your significant other might have a problem with it- it doesn’t have anything to do with her sexuality being tied up in male approval, although why she waited till she was drunk to kiss a girl might have something to do w/ society’s approval.

  12. I fail to understand how in the world anyone could have missed the blatant hypocrisy, and therefore rampant opportunism, in Katy Perry’s singing she kissed girl on the same album as she accuses someone of being “so gay”

  13. Um, this song is awesome. Listen how the bass line just sits tight until halfway through the chorus. You’re all dipshits that would rather psychoanalyze a song than actually listen to it.

  14. This is so well-written. My husband loves the song and I find it grating and mediocre and LOATH the gay for pay sentiment. It’s so obviously the drunken fake bisexual ploy for male attention. Blech!

  17. Oh come on…isn’t this deconstruction of “I Kissed a Girl” a little ridiculous? Whether you like the singer or the song (I don’t care for either, personally), I for one am THRILLED that kids in middle America have made a giant hit out of a song that to them most likely means nothing more than “It’s not that big a deal to kiss someone of your own gender.” Lighten up, people.

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