I Continue to Feel Horrified by Katy Perry's New Single

This past weekend, I felt different: The heat in New York melted my shoes into the sidewalk and the news melted my brain into my shoes—yet I felt sexy, confident, and so intelligent. I walked around my neighborhood and, it was almost like I was opening my eyes for the first time. I could barely believe what I discovered: Women, so many women! There was a winner, a champion; I saw a superhuman, a sister, a number one, and a mother. My eyes began to tear up and my skin began to goosebump as I tried to pinpoint the exact emotion that was cursing through my veins. Joy? Yes, but not just that. Pride? Yes, but something else too. Luck...? Yes. It was luck! I was feeling deeply, wildly, orgasmically lucky! Why? Because on Friday, Katy Perry bravely declared that it's a woman's world, goddammit, and we're lucky to be living in it. That is—this is what I assume Perry envisioned when she released "Woman's World," the banal, mind-numbing first single off her forthcoming album, 143, that makes me wish humans never learned how to make music. The song—if we're being forced to call it that—and the accompanying music video were released on Friday, and were panned so badly that Perry almost immediately posted some behind-the-scenes footage where she jokes to the camera that she's "being a bit sarcastic with it" and says in the caption, "YOU CAN DO ANYTHING! EVEN SATIRE!" What?? YOU CAN DO ANYTHING! EVEN SATIRE! pic.twitter.com/aHFTqcvCVm — KATY PERRY (@katyperry) July 13, 2024 "Girlboss shit! You can do it! You go, girl! You were born to shine!," Perry says in a mocking tone. But "Women's World" is not sending up a platitude-heavy, formulaic song pretending to be empowering, it is a platitude-heavy, formulaic song pretending to be empowering. So if she's mocking herself...is she trying to tell us she hates the song too? Does she know what she's mocking?? The music video is a litttttttle bit satirical, as long as you squint and you're drunk. It starts with Perry as sexy Rosie the Riveter, wearing a tool belt, drinking whiskey, and playing with sex toys before ripping off her little denim shirt to dance in a sequined American flag bikini top—a routine that includes a close-up of her squishing her tits together. Then an anvil drops on her—which is admittedly funny—and she's transported to what I think is meant to be a feminist wonderland, where she's traded in her USA bikini and Daisy Dukes for, get this, a white bikini (featuring underboob and a lot of butt) and...robot legs? Essentially, she goes from a Republican fantasy to Elon Musk's fantasy (which is really one in the same, Musk just probably prefers the leg armor). "And with this set, it's like ooh, we're not about the male gaze, but we really are about the male gaze, and we're really overplaying it and on the nose because I'm about to get smashed," Perry says of the transition between her two different bikinis. The second part of the music video is certainly not as obviously misogynistic as the first, but she's still wearing just as few clothes, she's covered in body oil, and she sticks a gas nozzle into her ass cheek at one point. It's fun, sure, but we are not subverting the male gaze here, Katy! I need you to understand this!!! I am fairly convinced that Perry released this song because she wanted an occasion to show off the results of her new nutrition or workout plan; this video is basically just an excuse for her to show off her abs and…