Pop Autopsy Supplemental: Katy Perry
“I’m sure there hasn’t been a documentary this tightly controlled since Kim Jong Il ordered his official historian to document that one time he slew that dragon. And Perry wants you to think she’s always been just as hip: rising above her strict Christian upbringing to bravely dye her hair blue and marry Russel Brand.”
It’s not that Katy Perry is untalented. She’s talented. Anyone who can perform to millions of people and have her music on ipods all across the world, can’t be untalented. She definitely sucks, but she’s not untalented.
With Perry’s 3D film, Katy Perry: Part of Me, opening this week, it’s easy to dismiss her as a bubblegum pop firework, burning bright only to fade into her rightful place in semi-obscurity within ten years. But she’s much more than that.
Nickelback is not untalented either. If you’ve ever been in a band, or performed on stage in any facet, you’d know it takes a modicum of talent that the average person doesn’t possess. Nickleback’s music sucks the balls of a homeless man sweating out the summer in a pair of polyester pants, but they achieved a lot for being so horrendous. And that’s exactly where Katy Perry has excelled as well.
Perry is a commodity that sings, dyes her hair funny colors and looks good in a dress. Her music is catchy, yet crappy pop music (crop) that is enjoyed by young girls, the feeble minded and people who wouldn’t know good music if it slapped them on the dick. So where Perry’s real talent lies is not in crafting a tune that would make Quincy Jones proud, but creating an amazing industry that will keep chugging until the people who keep her bank account full grow up and realize she’s shit.
And Katy Perry: Part of Me will add considerably to her bank account. She’s not quite at the end of the line with her career, but the film is still probably a cash-in attempt, because she (or her obviously Stephen Hawking level smart manager) realizes the end is in sight. The film takes you behind the scenes of Perry’s life and gives you a front row seat for her live show and reeks of an attempt to keep the bland pop star in the public eye. And when you’re as non-threatening as Perry, you can make a movie that takes the term “softball” to a level that offends softballs. It’s her movie so she will undoubtedly be treated better than say, Rupert Murdoch or Saddam Hussein would in a documentary and Part of Me will show Perry in her purest pre-packaged self. Stock footage of her early days will attempt to dispel the notion that she’s nothing but a Monkees with a good rack: just add hair dye. I’m sure there hasn’t been a documentary this tightly controlled since Kim Jong Il ordered his official historian to document that one time he slew that dragon. And Perry wants you to think she’s always been just as hip: rising above her strict Christian upbringing to bravely dye her hair blue and marry Russel Brand.
Katy Perry isn’t untalented, she’s just the McDonald’s of pop music: Cheap and salty. She knows she has a finite amount of time to make her money before she fades away. She had a front row seat for Britney Spears’ demise and knows she can extend her fame through careful plotting, divorcing the English douchebag, and making a movie dullards will want to pay money to see. Staying off the coke can’t hurt either. So if you think Katy Perry is untalented, you’re not paying attention: She’s super talented at maintaining an incredible industry centering around nothing more than dumb pop and a tight dress. Let’s just not pretend it’s anything deeper than that, and we can let the young ladies and feeble minded enjoy her until it’s time to bid her adieu.
