Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl:” It’s No Big Deal, It’s Innocent?

Illustration by Klon Waldrip

by Casey DeHoedt
08/21/2008

In 1995 Jill Sobule released her self-titled album which included two known and two talked about songs: “Supermodel” and “I Kissed a Girl.” The former received more popularity as a feature track on the Clueless soundtrack. At the time the song’s catchiness – and cinematic use – may have distracted from Sobule’s message about young girls marring their bodies with eating disorders in order to “fit into” high school.

However, the song “I Kissed A Girl,” from what I heard back in those days, gained notoriety but not much play or praise.

In retrospect, the song was a bold move. It opens with two women discussing the proposal of a “hairy behemoth” boyfriend and thoughts of being able to do “better;” their dissatisfaction with heterosexual courtship. The song goes further as the narrator relates the comfort, satisfaction and safety she finds in her lesbian relationship with “Jenny.”

In 1995 this subject of homosexuality/lesbianism was gaining a voice in mainstream media, but in 1995 it was still a taboo subject. As a pre-teen at the song’s release, I cannot remember anything like that song being so overt or open on the radio (not that it was heard often). I remember that it took the subject of homosexuality and lesbianism and printed it on the pages of YM magazine for other young girls to read. I’m not sure what it did for these ladies. Maybe not much. But I’d like to think it gave comfort to the isolated and confused females who had “tendencies” and offered others an option.

In 2008 Katy Perry releases her album One of the Boys on Capitol Records. The hot new track complete with music video is “I Kissed a Girl.” Immediately it’s “discussed.”

Perry’s lyrics tell a tale of a female who “accidentally” engages in a “scandalous” kiss with another female. The narrator claims “this was never the way I planned, not my intention I got so brave, drink in hand lost my discretion.”

And kiddos, I have to admit I’m having a hard time pulling the punches on this one. So I won’t.

Basically the song deals with the hard hitting issue of young girls getting drunk and making out – with other girls. The lyrics give little to voice empowerment for lesbians or lesbian relationships. Sobule’s “I Kissed a Girl” was about self-discovery and embracing pleasure/happiness even if it ran counter to social norms of sexuality. Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl,” with lyrics such as “you’re my experimental game,” and “don’t mean I’m in love tonight” also plays on embracing pleasure, but with a focus on “play.”

There is mention of self-discovery, turns out she “likes it.” However, there’s no indication of consent or even reference to the other participant. “No, I don’t even know your name, it doesn’t matter.”

Left to the devices of music video producers the sex outside of sexuality is even more amped up as Perry is surrounded by females all clad in the satin and lace of Victorian lingerie and set in scenes of pillow fights, a flowery vined grotto and well... a seraglio with enough hot pink cushions and curtains to give you the idea. The camera’s gaze voyeurs around on this “girl party” for a buffet of chests, legs and hips as girls lick cake frosting off their fingers and stare into the camera coquettishly.

Doing my best to shed prudish notions, I have a hard time seeing the merit in this song and video. Again, Sobule put a muted discussion on the radio and forced us to listen. Perry’s track, no matter how hard I try to view its use, seems only to play right into the hands of – let’s face it – male fantasy. On one hand, credit could be given to Perry for putting female sexuality “out there,” for showing women taking their sexuality into their own hands: their own power. Maybe even for adding light to “another option” for female sexuality. Perhaps even for easing the taboo of the subject. But I wonder; is this how it was intended? And still, the lyrics and the visuals of the video seem only for thrill and shock.

My complaint with all of this has less to do with the fetishization of lesbian sex acts – again here let’s clarify this is not lesbianism, it’s “girl on girl action” – but more to do with the fact that Perry’s lyrics seem to perpetuate the objectification of females. The lyrics of the bridge relate the body traits of the female: “soft skin, red lips, so kissable, hard to resist so touchable.” And the chorus hook repeats the “taste” of a female and her “cherry chapstick.” Again, going so far as to “taste” this female without knowing her identity, the individual – the subjective personality – she is and not even caring to know it: “it doesn’t matter.” It seems to claim that the song’s narrator got what she wanted – a sexual act, a libidinal thrill – not Sobule’s comfort, satisfaction or safety found with another female.

I wonder, in the thirteen years between Sobule’s “I Kissed a Girl” in 1995 and Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” in 2008 how did the struggle for homosexual identity in mass media become so skewed? How did it go from a hushed dialogue to Playboy fantasy? More so, I worry about the message that may be read and how that will be operationalized by already struggling identities. And if I’m not wrong, and Perry’s song does objectify females, oh God, like we didn’t have enough trouble with men treating us as sexual objects.