Katy Perry’s comeback is a feminist nightmare – but there could be a reason for that (Picture: Katy Perry/Youtube)
Katy Perry’s new album 143, released today, is undoubtedly a critical flop.
Words used to describe 143 in reviews include: ‘painfully dated’, ‘disastrous’, ‘detached’, and ‘cliché’.
But the main bone of contention, as came to full fruition when she dropped the album’s lead single Woman’s World earlier this year, is that her new release is a limping, wannabe feminist moment.
The Teenage Dream hitmaker, 39, didn’t help the prospects of her comeback, or her off-kilter version of feminism, when fans realised Dr Luke was behind much of the record – the music producer who Kesha accused of sexual, physical and emotional abuse (he later countersued her for defamation and they settled out of court).
It’s not been a great start for Katy – real name Katheryn Hudson – and especially not for the saccharine, polka-dotted ‘woman’s world’ she’s harking on about – which many 2024 women wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.
Her comeback looks even more out of touch when held up against the feminominon that is Chappell Roan’s Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, and Charli XCX’s Brat summer, as well as Sabrina Carpenter’s emergence as an old school pop darling while still managing to be empowering.
Katy’s social commentary has always been somewhat dated (Picture: John Shearer/Getty Images for Katy Perry)
She defended her recent single Woman’s World as satire (Picture: Katy Perry/Youtube)
If nostalgia was the goal, Katy Perry has kicked the ball well over the net, telling women of 2024 that women can be – cliffhanger – strong and sexy.
We know that, Katy. We’ve known that since the 1950s, when Marilyn Monroe became a sex symbol and the original feminist icon.
But there could be a reason Katy’s feminism is lagging behind the rest: many other popstars had a head start that she did not.
Katy Perry’s very religious upbringing and the ‘Jesus train’
Born in 1984, while many kids were welcomed into families already liberated by the 1960s free-love hippy movement, Katy was the middle child of two born again Pentecostal Christian ministers.
This came with some serious sheltering from the outside world’s devilish leanings.
While others had been hip-thrusting to The Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction for almost 20 years, for Katy non-religious music was forbidden. She was brought up on gospels and church hymns.
‘I wasn’t allowed to eat lucky charms because luck was derivative of Lucifer,’ she revealed on the Call Her Daddy podcast recently, continuing: ‘I wasn’t even allowed to acknowledge the opposite sex. I didn’t even know how to use a tampon.’
She explained: ‘I was on swim team still wearing a pad.’
Reflecting on her childhood in a 2020 interview with the Irish Times, Katy said it was non-stop Bible-thumping from birth.
‘My childhood was just the Jesus train. It wasn’t expansive and it wasn’t curious, it was just Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday evening; Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,’ she said.
Aside from her feminism, Katy has been criticised for using cultural appropriation in her past albums – using cornrows, geisha dresses, and Egyptian themes.
She previously reflected: ‘A lot of mistakes I’ve made in the past have been juvenile lack of education.’
Katy only attended school until the age of 15, so that checks out. And hello 2024 critics: Katy’s social commentary has always been clumsy. It’s just her old songs felt more in tune with the pop-tastic early 2010s, so no one minded as much.
She stood out as a goofy, poppy alternative to the seriousness of her noughties contemporaries’ feminism. Katy, although her humour is brash, has never taken herself too seriously.
I Kissed A Girl was released in 2008, and was a massive breakout hit for the star, cementing her as pop royalty. But many have since criticised it for lagging a huge amount in the world of LGBT+ progress, with tired stereotypes.
But Katy accepted that.
Katie was brought up as strictly Christian (Picture: Jesse Grant/Getty Images for EMI Music)
Her rocket into popstar royalty saw her sexual liberation (Picture: Katy Perry/YouTube)
Ten years later in an interview with The Guardian she admitted she would ‘make an edit’ if releasing it with a modern day lens, admitting: ‘Lyrically, it has a couple of stereotypes in it. Your mind changes so much in 10 years, and you grow so much. What’s true for you can evolve.’
Ur So Gay was an even worse example of Katy’s misstep into the zeitgeist – while tripping over a load of further damaging stereotypes in the process. It was still a hit, although perhaps reluctantly, as Katy’s playful pop presence and catchy chorus’ overrode her backwards messaging for the audiences of the time.
‘There is definitely not a whole lot of empathy or compassion towards people sometimes growing – or trying to grow – in the spotlight,’ Katy reflected in the interview in the Irish Times.
‘Because growth also means failing. And I’ve done a lot of falling flat on my face.’
Of course, as a global popstar Katy has a responsibility to think deeply about how she presents herself to young women, and what messages she’s sending out to little KatyCats – of which there are many.
But she’s still figuring it out – and that’s okay. Especially when Katy has by no means severed ties with her religious upbringing. Her parents are still very much a huge part of her life.
‘My parents are great and I love them so much,’ Katy said in a 2017 Today interview, adding: ‘I cry sometimes thinking about how much I love them.’
Katy is still close to her parents, though they do not approve of some of her work (Picture: BDG/REX/Shutterstock)
Yet, she admitted: ‘They don’t agree with some of the things I do and they do wish that I could do other things.
‘And I just have to say, “You are your own person, I am my own person, and my intentions are pure,”‘ she added.
Visions of her 2010 California Gurls anthem – undoubtedly her greatest track – are still etched into our collective memory. Katy grinning cheesily wearing giant cupcake nipples and seductively eating while lying naked on a candy floss cloud is a nostalgic gem.
She’s always been hot, naked, and silly in a kind of hap-hazardly ironic way. But in 2024, it’s unfortunately not enough.
Critics have slammed Katy’s new work as being sexual without substance, almost as if it was created for the male gaze.
Perhaps it was, if Dr Luke’s involvement and the load of male writers had anything to do with it.
Does the ironic feminism actually work?
Katy defended Women’s World as satire. But the problem with that is you have to understand a situation fully in order to mock it. Unfortunately, I don’t think Katy quite fully grasps where the feminist thinking is in 2024.
Yes, 143 is a critical disaster. Yes, her feminism is dated. But we can see why. She’s still straddling between the girl she was brought up as, and the woman we all want her to be.
The star was grappling with this as recently as 2018, when she told Glamour: ‘I don’t want to hold on to childhood trauma anymore. I want to grow into becoming an adult.’
Katy explained: ‘This last year has been about killing my ego, which has been really necessary for my career. But for my personal life, it doesn’t work that way. If I want to have that true balance, I have to step into being Katheryn Hudson.’
Many criticised Katy’s new record for lacking authenticity, but maybe she’s still finding Katheryn, and this was her attempt to step back in time with a message her younger self would be able to digest.
Perhaps it’s not that deep. But any attempt at feminism should be applauded, no matter how clumsy.
I’m his, he’s mine is another video on the album that’s outdated (Picture’ Katy Perry VEVO)
While critics have slammed her new album, it’s still important for fans who grew to love her 2010 weirdness (Picture: Katy Perry / YouTube)
But little Katheryn, much like many Katy Perry fans, wouldn’t be ready for a Brat summer, or what we, the chronically online, perceive to be 2024 feminism. Many still need to be told that it is okay to be sexy and proud, and there is still strength in that message.
If you scroll down the comments from fans on her YouTube Woman’s World video, the knee-jerk reaction from many was simply joy at her return.
‘The jet black hair, the slightly weird music videos, the dance pop sound. Oh Katy Perry is BACK!!!’ raved @EthelJung-j5w.
@TACHAYA wrote, ‘KATY PERRY is BACK,’ as @MystyLena said: ‘It’s Katy’s world and we’re lucky to be living in it.’
‘NEW KATY PERRY ERA IS STARTING.’ wrote @claudiajordan336, while @shakuntalashakuntala1849 said: ‘”I’m Katy Perry,” is actually emotional. no mother we never forgot you.’
As the articles rolled in slamming Woman’s World as a lacklustre feminist flop, these comments became much more critical, perhaps as people thought more deeply about it too.
Katy Perry isn’t there for the critics, often brought up in cocktail-swinging social circles who discuss modern art, the Morrissey paradox, and Joan Didion.
She’s there for little girls repressed by socially conservative families, who are just learning the meaning of the word feminism.
So there is still a need for Katy Perry’s 1950s feminism. It’s just a shame about Dr Luke.
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