Kissing girls can't help Katy Perry escape the long arm of Jesus
Beliefnet's Joanne Brokaw, who broke the Katy Perry's secret evangelical past story last year, listens in on a conference call in which PK KP drops enough Christianese ("I have had my own relationship and my own beliefs and I'm continually on an upward search with all of that") to make clear that she hasn't made a total break with that world.
At one point Katy is asked about promoting homosexuality. This was something of a concern among conservative Christians and probably says more than anything about how disconnected much of that group is from mainstream culture. The idea that I Kissed A Girl is a "pro-gay" song is just laughable. In fact it's as about as pro-gay as Girls Gone Wild, appropriating and diminishing female sexual desire for the express purpose of pandering to juvenile straight-boy fantasies.
Which is, of course, why it's a hit. As John Tabin noted here last summer, there's a world of difference between Katy's shamelessly calculating novelty hit and Jill Sobule's far more interesting and honest song of the same name from a decade ago.
Update: Hey, fans of Andrew. If you're interested in this type of thing, check out my book, Rapture Ready!
Comments
There's a double standard here. Nobody made a fuss when Garth Brooks had the top 10 hit, "I kissed a boy."
Posted by: mypalmike | January 27, 2009 9:55 AM
Garth Brooks is gay.
In the schoolyard sense, I mean.
Posted by: radosh | January 27, 2009 10:12 AM
I don't know about Garth, but Chris Gains is definitely gay.
Posted by: punky | January 28, 2009 7:10 PM
In the schoolyard sense, I mean.
Posted by: punky | January 28, 2009 7:12 PM