Is Jesus Katy Perry's girlfriend?
Katy Perry is a fresh-faced young pop star with a big new dance hit called "I Kissed A Girl." It's a typical, if lush and sexy, subjugation of female sexuality to male fantasy that shouldn't be taken too seriously, although of course youth pastors are. (Typically, this guy thinks the song has something to do with homosexuality. "This is really a video for young girls.
" Um, yeah.).
What's really interesting is that Katy Perry used to be Katy Hudson, a Christian recording artist whose parents are conservative pastors. Back in 2001, Christianity Today called her "a gifted songwriter in her own right who will almost certainly go far in this business."
Beliefnet's Joanne Brokaw writes, "Looking back, her 2001 debut wasn't a 'Jesus is my boyfriend' album; the lyrics were genuine and the album was a legitimate Christian release...It's a curious thing, that a girl who was obviously engaging in rebellious behavior got a Christian record deal in the first place. Either she's a great actress or a lot of people in the industry looked the other way." Hey, It doesn't surprise me that a cute PK could talk a good game, and that money-hungry record execs were all too willing to believe her.
Katy said she grew up listening to Carman, which is enough to turn anybody off of Christianity. But I suspect this story isn't over yet. Katy Perry's music, enjoyable though it is, is too clever and calculated by half. If she ever really was interested in "learning who she is," I doubt this is her conclusion. Knowing nothing about her personally, it's hard to say what will happen if and when the pop machine finishes chewing her up and spitting her out. Will she return to the fundamentalism of her childhood? Find a more moderate Christian path? Or continue moving forward, and grow into somebody with her own voice and her own path?
God only knows.
Comments
Is she covering Jill Sobule or is this an original?
Posted by: R. Totale | June 23, 2008 5:54 PM
It's a different song. Very different.
Posted by: radosh | June 23, 2008 5:55 PM
shouldn't be taken too seriously
Unlike Huckapoo, of course.
Posted by: Jared | June 23, 2008 7:54 PM
I would love to hear a sermon on Huckapoo...
Posted by: radosh | June 23, 2008 8:21 PM
There's no doubt, Jesus being a man and all, that if she WERE his girlfriend AND 'kissed a girl and liked it', he'd be looking to score the three-way. Now that's a trinity I can get behind.
Perhaps there's a reason so many people scream his name when in the throes of ecstasy. The kingdom of heaven is within us all? Perhaps it’s locked inside human sexuality. Serious repression in the dude’s time… A ritual bath if you even touched a menstruating woman? Maybe he was rebelling against a lot more than we think…
Posted by: Anonymous | June 24, 2008 8:54 AM
Finally, an excuse to hate Katy Perry less! Now she actually has an interesting back story (and I'll probably track down her older stuff). Will need to listen to all of her new album to see if there's anything even remotely not smug/calculated on it.
(Interesting transition there, from "rebellious" but accepted Christian artist to the Antichrist.)
Posted by: Dave | June 24, 2008 10:18 AM
I think these youth pastors have it right, it is evil culture which causes teenagers to have sex, teens dont really want to do it otherwise. These pastors seem to believe every christian country was populated by pure victorians before the year 1963 and then culture just slid downstream to pure evil and taught kids to fuck for the first time.
Posted by: Original Unironic | June 25, 2008 8:00 AM
taught kids to fuck for the first time? well gee, thank god for mainstream pop or else the species would have to go back to mystical and magical methods to "teach" the human race to continue. funny that kids should FINALLY learn to "fuck" only after the wake of the free love era of the 60's. evil? an evil that is much more dangerous than pop music is the FEAR inherent on this message board and in fundamentalism in general. it is fear that is the OPPOSITE of love (fear of love-making?). am i to assume that no one who posts here has had sex or sexual desire in their entire lives before they encountered pop music? the only evil that i have encountered is in closed-mindedness, rejection and persecution of THY NEIGHBOR where love should instead exist. where does your anger come from? pop music? or maybe daddy touched you?
Posted by: justin | July 1, 2008 11:13 AM
p.s. she just hit number one. call the exorcist, i guess we are REALLY in trouble.
Posted by: justin | July 1, 2008 11:15 AM
Okay, I found your Rapture Ready! book by total accident - LOVED IT - and now this about Katy Perry?!!! You now have 1 new subscriber and evangelist (yes, I'm a recovering fundie... argh).
Dig your writing and wit. Thanks for your humor, mate. Great stuff all around.
Posted by: Daniel Holter | July 15, 2008 2:04 AM
If you read your Bible, you know that Jesus was gay. So, he was her BOYFRIEND (except in sort of a bitchy, Matt Damon "Hey, Girlfriend" way) until she wrote a song about him ("UR so gay". Well, she didn't take the writing credit, but I'm sure she wrote it.)
Posted by: j | September 10, 2008 6:50 PM