Pop stars reinventing
themselves is not a new phenomenon. David Bowie relaunched himself as
Ziggy Stardust and then became the Thin White Duke. Kylie Minogue was
the girl next door who suddenly acquired a taste for black basques. But
few transformations have been as total as the one that has taken Katy
Perry to the top of the US singles charts. Perry, 23, began her career
with a collection of Christian gospel songs. Her parents are both
Protestant pastors, so many of her former fans are astonished to find
her topping the charts now with a single celebrating the pleasures of a
lesbian kiss.
'I Kissed a Girl' is poised to be the hit of the American summer and is
the 1,000th number one since Bill Haley and His Comets' shocked the
music business with 'Rock Around the Clock' in 1955. The lyrics are
mild enough: 'I kissed a girl/and I liked it ... Us girls we are so
magical/Soft skin, red lips, so kissable/Hard to resist so
touchable/Too good to deny it.'
Perry's background has led to consternation from the Evangelical
Christian community. 'What a sad picture of a lost child who has been
swept away by the carnal pleasures of the world,' reads one entry on
the Christian website Planetwisdom.com. 'We need to be lifting this gal
up in prayer. While we're at it, let's toss up a prayer for her
parents, too. Not to mention the countless young girls who will buy
into this lesbian chic message.'
Perry says her parents, who once banned rock music from the home, are
now supportive of her despite the new musical direction. 'Well, I'm not
strung out on crack and doing centrefolds,' she said last week. This is
not the singer's first foray into edgy areas of sexuality. Perry's last
single, 'Ur So Gay', poured scorn on effeminate metrosexual males and,
in particular, on Perry's ex-boyfriend who 'wore more make-up' than she
did. 'I hope you hang yourself with your H&M scarf,' was one of
the
more memorable lines.
In an interview with the New Gay magazine, she described the dilemma
for girls dating in 2008 as comparable to being thrown into a lion's
den of 'who's on this team and who's on that team?' 'I was dating this
boy who was very metrosexual, I always end up with these guys who are
very sensitive and good-looking and clean-cut and smell good. But this
one in particular, I thought, "In another life, you are a gay man".'
It is all a long way from the Santa Barbara church where she got her
first taste of performance. In 2001 she released Katy Hudson - her real
name - on a Christian music label. She was judged by religious groups
to be an ideal vehicle for reaching out to teenage girls with songs of
faith and devotion. But she soon came to the attention of The Matrix -
the managers behind stars Avril Lavigne and Ricky Martin. Overnight
Katy Hudson became Katy Perry, described recently by Sheila Marikar of
ABC News as 'a hip-shaking, lingerie-wearing, pseudo-lesbian pop star'.
Joe Levy, the editor of Blender magazine said: 'She didn't transition -
she stopped dead, reinvented herself, became an artist who has nothing
to do with Christian music. It looks like who she is now is who she
wants to be, slightly outrageous and very cute.'
Some gay activists are less enthusiastic. 'I Kissed A Girl' should not
be considered third-wave feminism, but 'good, old-fashioned
woman-using' by a woman who 'feminises and demonises men who drive
electric cars and don't eat meat', says Fatemah Fakhraie of the
magazine Feministe.
Perry is unfazed by the criticism and has a simple explanation for why
she wrote the song: 'The fact of the matter is that girls, a lot of the
time, smell much better than boys. We smell like vanilla. We smell like
watermelon. We smell like strawberries. So, duh! One day I was with my
boyfriend and I opened up a magazine and realised, "You know what,
honey, I would probably make out with Angelina Jolie if she wanted to".
'It doesn't matter if you're female or male, if the right woman walks
through the door, everybody's jaw is going to be on the floor.'
Pop stars reinventing
themselves is not a new phenomenon. David Bowie relaunched himself as
Ziggy Stardust and then became the Thin White Duke. Kylie Minogue was
the girl next door who suddenly acquired a taste for black basques. But
few transformations have been as total as the one that has taken Katy
Perry to the top of the US singles charts. Perry, 23, began her career
with a collection of Christian gospel songs. Her parents are both
Protestant pastors, so many of her former fans are astonished to find
her topping the charts now with a single celebrating the pleasures of a
lesbian kiss. 
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