Katy Perry‘s “Woman’s World”, a new music video, made headlines over the weekend. But not necessarily for reasons that she had hoped for. Perry’s first single off her upcoming album, “Woman’s World,” had all of the characteristics of her usual pop anthems. However, the video was a bizarre collage of ideas which left fans scratching at their heads. Perry didn’t seem to be too worried about the response.
Perry sings and dances in “Woman’s World”, a parody construction site, with all sorts of hyper-feminine objects before being crushed by a CGI hammer. She then stands up in a bikini, wearing robotic armored gauntlets, and walks through dystopian surreal scenes without any apparent purpose. She fills her legs with gas, steals a woman’s smartphone and ringlight before taking off on a helicopter. She finishes the video with a triumphant shout: “I am Katy Perry!”
Many fans are confused, and others are downright angry. Many critics, despite their jokes, feel that the ostensibly feminist message of the song is undermined by the men who worked on the video. Take a look below at the most popular responses to the video.
Table of Contents
Dr. Luke
The first thing critics could not believe was that this feminist anthem, produced by Lukasz Gotwald, also known as Dr. Luke, had been written by him. Kesha has accused Gottwald of sexually abusing her. Gottwald has denied these allegations. Fans also pointed out that almost everyone who is credited with this music video, save for the fashion director, and the second assistant, are men.
What is the Women’s World like?
One Instagram user wrote: “It’s a woman’s world, but 99 percent of the video is white women with the same body type hmmmmmm.” One Instagram User wrote that “99 percent of the video was white women with the exact same body type.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9NdsHrOzLm/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Commenters thought that Perry was appealing to an older crowd and using an old-fashioned idea of “feminism”. Commenters felt that Perry’s collaborators were aiming for a non-offensive version of female empowerment, which was popular in the previous decade. However, they guessed it would not resonate with younger generations. A user on X summarized the situation by saying Perry understood her audience.
Jojo Siwa
Perry’s explanation
Perry uploaded a video to Instagram to try to explain the concept behind “Women’s World,” however, it did not do much to convince her critics. She explained: “We are just joking around and being a little sarcastic.” It’s very slapstick, very obvious, and this set is like ‘ooh we’re about, we’re really about the man gaze’.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9X5J6hJlNp/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
She continued, “We’re overplaying and being a bit naive because we’re going to be smashed, which is like a resetting, a resetting for me and for my idea about feminine divinity.” After this, it’s going to be a completely different world.
Fans’ Reactions
Fans had some very clear reasons why Perry’s explanation did not work for them. , a person , wrote , “Without any discernible criticism of the system which creates the circumstances that are ostensibly’satirized,’ in the beginning, it is not satire, but just aimless carisma.” A second person added that “a successful satire would not have needed this much of an explanation.”