Friday was a day marked in my calendar for weeks. There was curiosity, anticipation, skepticism and even a hint of excitement. Friday, 12th July 2024, was the day that Katy Perry dropped a brand new song: the much hyped and much discussed before it was even released, Woman’s World. But it’s not 2010 anymore, and it is no longer Katy’s world.
At 2 minutes and 42 seconds, a bridgeless verse-chorus-verse-chorus, it is an easy digestion. Sure, it sounds a lot like Lady Gaga’s Stupid Love whilst attempting to create the same global movement as Born This Way, but the thing that Woman’s World reminds me of most is actually Barbie. No, not Aqua’s Barbie Girl (Katy could only dream), but Barbie the doll and titular character in the recent movie.
If you aren’t familiar with the plot of the Barbie Movie, it’s basically that Barbie lives in Barbie-Land where everything is perfect and fabulous, no one really has any distinguishable qualities and women rule – a stark contrast to the “real world” where patriarchy runs rampant and women are actually deep, nuanced human beings that face challenges and have flaws. Woman’s World also ignores this fact, simplifying the multi-faceted female experience down to a few broad, 3-word declarations such as ‘she is heavensent’ and ‘she’s a flower’. Apart from the abysmally underwritten chorus, this is all the content we are given. ‘She’ (referring presumably to all women in general) is confident. She is intelligent. ‘She’ is soft. ‘She’ is a sister. ‘She’ was born to shine. ‘She’ is all the non-specific, positive adjectives and vague cliches we associate with womanhood from tampon and razor commercials and nothing more.
Ultimately, Woman’s World suffers from the same shortcomings as the concept of Barbie: devoid of any substance, an artificial trivialisation disconnected from reality created for and by the male gaze.
There is a scene in the Barbie movie where she approaches a teenage girl expecting elation, gratitude and adoration, but is met with a savage dressing down explaining why the message she represents is actually the opposite of what Barbie intends. The young lady explains that, conversely, Barbie makes women feel bad about themselves because of her impossible beauty standards and sets the feminist movement back 50 years – to which a very confused Barbie argues that no, she is supposed to make you feel happy and powerful. 2024 Katy Perry is Barbie at this moment: “I’ve given you this shiny, mass-produced, man-made product and told you it is feminism…why your face not do the smile thing?”
If the Barbie comparison wasn’t evident enough, we move to the accompanying, overtly sexual and ham-fisted music video. Katy has been hitting the gym and/or the Ozempic and has a rockin’ bod to show for it. She has always been smoking hot, but the way that she can look so sexy whilst also making you cringe should be studied. She dances around, scantily clad on a fake construction site brandishing a bedazzled drill and a sex toy before being crushed by an anvil…um…yay feminism!!??
Whilst she has never been known for her good taste (this is the same Katy Perry who once shot whipped cream from her breasts and sang Ur So Gay) it has never been quite so off-putting.
Wearing cupcake boobs and a blue wig in a shameless party song dancing in the clouds with Snoop Dogg is fun and silly, but you can’t attach this kind of satirical insincerity and facetiousness to a genuine cause with significant real life consequences. Women in Katy’s home country of America are grappling with the very real threat of having their abortion rights taken away, watching two geriatric men with the future of the free world in their hands argue over golf stats while the gender pay gap lays dormant.
How is this a woman’s world? Because we are all so soft and so strong? Of course, Katy is allowed to celebrate a small, shallow aspect of the female experience and turn it into a fun pop song (in fact this is very on brand) but her call to action is literally ‘you’d better celebrate ‘cause baby we ain’t goin’ away’ which, I’m sorry, only suggests that men want us to go away. Which probably is the case (at least with some women) for co-writer and producer, Dr Luke.
It’s already unfair that I have spent more time writing this opinion piece than all 6 (yes, 6) people spent writing this song. But now we do have to address the Dr Luke of it all. Dr Luke is the producer behind most of your favourite pop songs of the late 2000s/early 2010s including the biggest hits from Katy Perry and of course, Kesha. Dr. Luke and Kesha have been embroiled in a nasty he said/she said legal battle for the better part of a decade now with Kesha alleging mistreatment and sexual assault. Of course, there’s no way to know who is telling the truth here, but this is a post Me-Too era where the presumption of truth is supposed to lean towards the alleged victim.
We will not be venturing too deep into the seedy underbelly of abuse and sexism in the music industry in this instance but the irony is overwhelming: Katy Perry could have worked with ANY collaborator in the world (in fact Dr. Luke was 1 of 4 producers, all men) and she chose an accused abuser of at least one woman, for her female empowerment anthem.
Where does this leave Katy Perry and her comeback era? Will Woman’s World defy my disgust and predictions and become a huge hit? Will there be a follow up song, a sequel in which Katy Perry BarbieTM learns that women are more than just plastic play things with sparkly accessories? That we have thoughts and feelings and struggles as we navigate our way towards a truly egalitarian society? Maybe we were too harsh on her during her ‘purposeful pop’ Witness era where she urged us to take her seriously, so the pendulum has swung back too far, to the 1930s it would seem.
Katy Perry’s legacy used to be a Teenage Dream but now it’s more of an early mid-life crisis nightmare. Unfortunately for her, Katy Perry is a Barbie Girl in a Woman’s World. Come on Barbie, let’s go retire.
