Firstly, I think speculating on the sexuality of a real person is not the right thing to do. And while the title of this post is attempting to do that, my goal is not uncover Katy Perry’s “true sexual identity.” It’s really none of my business. I want to explore Katy Perry’s song I Kissed A Girl as a piece of LGBTQ representation. From my limited research on Katy Perry’s sexuality, as well as only slightly more informed knowledge of her music, she seems to identify as heterosexual but has kissed a girl at one point.
It’s a good song. It’s catchy, the chorus is easy to sing along with and it has a thumping, danceable beat throughout. It came out in April of 2008 as a single by Katy Perry. It had massive commercial success, topping charts for over a month post release. Interestingly enough, it came out only a few months after her highly problematic song Ur So Gay, in which she sings her frustrations with a boy who fits all sorts of gay stereotypes but isn’t gay. A brief diversion for this song, it came out in 2007, when discourse around gay people in media was pretty different than today, it still seems mysterious to me that a song that begins with the lines “I hope you hang yourself with your H&M scarf while jerking off listening to Mozart” would do as well as it did and also generate any popularity at all. But what do I know, I was four years old in 2007. Anyways, Ur So Gay was a crazy song, and its fascinating that it came out right before I Kissed a Girl. Equally fascinating is the fact that this information was edited off her Wikipedia page. I should also note that in the music video, while a cat is petted suggestively and several scantily clad women dance together, there is no actual kissing.
I Kissed a Girl is sung from the (female) singer’s perspective and is about kissing a girl (duh) and liking it. It frames kissing girls and enjoying it as something taboo, something that while perhaps is just an “experimental game” also “felt so wrong” and “felt so right.” The singer hopes her “boyfriend won’t mind it,” but she doesn’t seem that concerned about what her boyfriend might think given that it “ain’t no big deal, it’s innocent.” It trivializes and dismisses a non-straight feminine sexuality. It seems to play into the fetishization of wlw relationships that is still pervasive in popular culture. Katy Perry appears to utilize the taboo nature to gain more plays, it is tempting because it is not quite allowed. Katy Perry can make this song because in all other ways she is normative. I Kissed A Girl perhaps cultivates something homonormative.
I Kissed A Girl is obviously not perfect representation. But I don’t think it should be completely dismissed. It was one of very few explicitly LGBTQ pop culture moments when it came out. The song rose to fame at a particular moment in LGBTQ history in America. It was a time of new visibility and acceptance in straight popular culture, but only partially. I think there is still something to say for the ways that the song made visible female lesbian/bisexual sexuality in such a popular way, even if it is perhaps flawed.
Further complicating context that I don’t get into is that this song was co written and produced by the now infamous Dr. Luke, and I don’t know how that factors but it seems like there could be something there.
One reply on “Katy Perry Kissed A Girl (or did she?)”
Rebecca! This is brilliant. Your writing style is so engaging… I couldn’t stop reading. As soon as I saw “I kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry I couldn’t help but sing it and while I was thinking about Katy Perry, all of her creepy flirtatious attempts at the contestants of the Voice/Idol came to mind. My mental image of Katy Perry is one that is based off of how well known she is, and how obviously straight white woman she is (although, I promise that I am not trying to essentialist and reduce her identity. In the public eye, she’s kind of… very easily understood as heteronormative). I mean, she’s a normative subject: white, femme, conventionally attractive, cisgender, and arguably, STRAIGHT! Yes, she made this song, and it became kind of a gay anthem! Very culturally significant! Yet you so aptly pointed out that this song is…. not super cool. It’s fetishising fetishizing wlw (women-loving-women) desire for the heterosexual male gaze. I think also of another analytic: Adrienne Rich’s critiques compulsory heterosexuality, which she describes not just as a sexuality but as a regime, a structure of feeling, expectation, and power that punishes or trivializes non-hetero experiences unless they are safely contained. Katy Perry’s kiss is “experimental,” and “innocent,” and most importantly, non-threatening to male power because er boyfriend “won’t mind.” He was never really, at risk. It’s a I’ve heard so often, and even in one of my relationships. Women loving women isn’t perceived as threatening to male heterosexuality. When I’d kiss girls (as a person who is very VERY attracted to women), then men (interested in me at the same time) around me wouldn’t mind. I always thought that was a little presumptuous and silly. I take women+, as potential partners, just as seriously as men.
Still, I agree about what this song can represent. Queerness is created & undone. Even if the artist (while alluding to the eternal debate separating art from the artist!) may not be queer, this song can be viewed as a queer song! Even if the representation was compromised. In Cruising Utopia, Muñoz argues that queerness is not only what is, but what might be. And just for me, “I Kissed A Girl” as a naughty and popular song (from when I was in middle school in India) made me feel a little bit better about kissing girls when the people around me thought it was very #haram or gross. It felt cool to do what cool singers did. It felt subversive and retroactively, I think it helped me feel more queer!