Speaker 1: So much.
Speaker 2: You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 3: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and borders
Speaker 3: that this podcast is recorded on from Mamma Mia. Welcome
Speaker 3: to The Spill, your daily pop culture fix. I'm Laura
Speaker 3: Brodnick and I'm m Vernon And on today's show, we
Speaker 3: are talking about Katie Perry's new rebrand, her new music video.
Speaker 3: There has been an avalanche.
Speaker 4: I think is the right way. That is a correct
Speaker 4: word of.
Speaker 3: Criticism about this, and we're going to delve into what's
Speaker 3: really happening, because I don't think it's as simple as
Speaker 3: she's just released a bad song.
Speaker 4: There's more to it.
Speaker 5: But first, but first, Sharon Stone posted a photo of
Speaker 5: herself on Instagram that's gone absolutely viral. She's wearing lingerie
Speaker 5: sitting like cross legged on a chair as a callback
Speaker 5: to her iconic scene in Basic Instinct, where she's wearing
Speaker 5: kind of like a white mini dress sitting in the
Speaker 5: same position being interrogated by all of these men. I
Speaker 5: personally haven't seen Basic Instinct, but it's on your list,
Speaker 5: it's on my list. But I have seen that scene.
Speaker 3: I would say one of the most famous movie scenes
Speaker 3: of all time. It's one of those movie scenes that
Speaker 3: is so strong that you can just see the even
Speaker 3: just the crop of her head and shoulders in the
Speaker 3: white dress and the way her eyes are looking in
Speaker 3: that scene, and you know exactly what movie and what
Speaker 3: iconic moment it's alluding to, Like what It's that powerful
Speaker 3: that just from a movie still you can tell what's happening.
Speaker 5: Especially because all the men are just sweating and she's
Speaker 5: just so chick and she can't yeah, and she's being
Speaker 5: interrogated and she slowly closes her legs and then puts
Speaker 5: her other leg over and there's a flash.
Speaker 3: And for everyone who wants to go and stop, like,
Speaker 3: watch that part of the movie and pause it. You
Speaker 3: can't really really see. It's like a little flash of skin.
Speaker 5: It's clear that she's not wearing any underwear. Yes, And
Speaker 5: what I didn't know when I was reading about this
Speaker 5: post that she did recently was that she actually claimed
Speaker 5: that she was tricked into not wearing any underwear because
Speaker 5: she was wearing white underwear and they were saying that
Speaker 5: it was reflecting off the lights, so she had to
Speaker 5: take her underwear off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that didn't come out until I think it
Speaker 3: was twenty twenty one where she released her memoir The
Speaker 3: Beauty of Living Twice, and that was one of the
Speaker 3: stories that was in it, because up until then everyone
Speaker 3: thought that she was very kind of in on the
Speaker 3: gimmick of doing that and what was happening. And then
Speaker 3: in the book she says, yeah, she's wearing underwear, and
Speaker 3: they kept saying, like, oh, can we just get one
Speaker 3: shot with the underwear off because it's reflecting the light
Speaker 3: and we're getting this like weird flash every time the
Speaker 3: camera goes, but I promise you we won't see anything.
Speaker 3: So she did it, and then that's the take that
Speaker 3: was in the movie, and the filmmakers have said that's
Speaker 3: not true and kind of refuted what she was saying.
Speaker 3: But she's really stuck to that story over the last
Speaker 3: couple of years.
Speaker 5: I love how she's stuck to that story, but like,
Speaker 5: hasn't let that take over the entire storyline of that
Speaker 5: soh yeah. Like the fact that she's recreated this position
Speaker 5: so many times and now she's in the sixties and
Speaker 5: she still looks so amazing, and the fact that she's
Speaker 5: just like given herself back the narrative I think is
Speaker 5: really cool.
Speaker 1: Nana Nana.
Speaker 5: So when I first heard the song, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 5: I understand. It's obviously very satire. It feels very poignant
Speaker 5: on like what feminism is. It's pretty much just talking
Speaker 5: about feminism as being feminism.
Speaker 4: I picture the song because I quite like the chorus.
Speaker 4: It's very damn I.
Speaker 3: Kind of like it too. It took me a while.
Speaker 3: I think the magic of pop songs is that their repetitiveness.
Speaker 3: A lot of the time, if you hear a song
Speaker 3: on the radio, like old school how we used to
Speaker 3: hear on the radio like millions of times a day,
Speaker 3: and it weaves its way into your head and that's
Speaker 3: why you start to like it. And I've got to say,
Speaker 3: listen to this song so many times because I actually
Speaker 3: heard it for the rest of the world, not to
Speaker 3: you did hear before this, Not to you know, make
Speaker 3: anyone jealous, But yes. I went into Universal Music Offices,
Speaker 3: very close to Mummea offices actually, for a little pre
Speaker 3: listening party before the song came out. And I listened
Speaker 3: to it in a room with a bunch of people
Speaker 3: and champagne and stuff.
Speaker 4: And people like bopping along.
Speaker 3: And my first thought listening to it is it sounds
Speaker 3: like a song that would play at the beginning of
Speaker 3: like an early two thousands rom com in terms.
Speaker 5: Of what the exact same note literally mine was like,
Speaker 5: so the rom com start, Yeah, she breaks up with
Speaker 5: her terrible toxic.
Speaker 4: A beautiful apartment in New York and she put five.
Speaker 5: Years and then she's like walking on the street and
Speaker 5: her friends are there and like.
Speaker 3: And she's whipping off her sunglasses and going into her
Speaker 3: like publishing job in New York where she makes it so.
Speaker 5: Exactly we need, we need someone to make a rom
Speaker 5: commented Star Kate Hudson.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Apart from that, like, it also sounds kind of
Speaker 3: very eighties and but I can also understand the criticism
Speaker 3: of it that people think it sounds a bit manufactured.
Speaker 5: Yes, And I think that's what the original criticism was
Speaker 5: for the song when it came out, and she kind
Speaker 5: of doubled down with the music videos, like kind of
Speaker 5: showing that it very much is satire. So before we
Speaker 5: go into like all the commentary behind the music video,
Speaker 5: I just want to take you through some of the symbolism.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, within it.
Speaker 5: I did a big investigative research piece to this. So
Speaker 5: it starts off with a construction site. There's a sign
Speaker 5: that says men at work and then they write wo,
Speaker 5: so women at work. They then do the iconic scene
Speaker 5: of lunch atop a skyscraper that everyone does.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, that was an image that came out that
Speaker 3: became this very famous image of these men on a
Speaker 3: big construction being raised above New York having lunch and
Speaker 3: it looks so dangerous and exciting, and it came out
Speaker 3: it was like a setup.
Speaker 4: Shot as promotion for the sky scrape. Yeah, but it works.
Speaker 4: It worked.
Speaker 5: She cause plays as Josie the Riveter, which is like
Speaker 5: the iconic women's World War two. Women can do anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you've seen that picture around, women can do
Speaker 3: anything where she's like making the fear and head Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she's drinking whiskey for women.
Speaker 1: I liked that.
Speaker 3: I thought that was really funny because it's a really
Speaker 3: interesting nod to all these products that are for women,
Speaker 3: like a women's razor or a women's cup or a
Speaker 3: women's anything, and then you put a little bit of
Speaker 3: pink on it and you have to pay more money
Speaker 3: for it. So I actually thought that was because you
Speaker 3: know that women's whiskey is more expensive.
Speaker 5: And then there's like a lot of beauty products featured.
Speaker 5: She has like sex toys, she's got like ger she's
Speaker 5: got like little led face masks. We also did a
Speaker 5: piece on Mamma Mia called the Hidden Details you might
Speaker 5: have Missed in Katie Perry's music video, and I couldn't
Speaker 5: read it without laughing. It's so funny. I want to
Speaker 5: read you a little bit. It said, from hammering to
Speaker 5: dancing to completing an extensive routine. The first version of
Speaker 5: Katie we see in the music video has a lot
Speaker 5: going on. When an enormous anvil inexplicably drops on the
Speaker 5: construction site version of Katie, she's reborn down on the
Speaker 5: streets now wearing a white bikini and bionic legs.
Speaker 3: I mean that storytelling.
Speaker 4: It is storytelling.
Speaker 5: So she kind of becomes like this bionic woman. She's
Speaker 5: seen like with the petrol pump in her thigh, like
Speaker 5: as she's refueling herself, which I thought was very interesting.
Speaker 5: Tricia Petus, who's a famous YouTuber, is suddenly there.
Speaker 4: She's pulling a truck on by back. Wait.
Speaker 3: Tricia Peters is the one who thought the queen was
Speaker 3: going to be reincarnated as her daughter.
Speaker 5: No She's the one who we thought the queen was
Speaker 5: gonna be a recinded in her daughter, and then it happened.
Speaker 3: Oh sorry for that.
Speaker 4: I don't want to mess up history.
Speaker 5: There's also this other line that I have to read
Speaker 5: because it's so funny. In the final scenes, Katie joins
Speaker 5: an influencer to film a TikTok dance before stealing her
Speaker 5: ring light and jumping on a helicopter. As the influencer
Speaker 5: yells who are you to the singer, she lifts the
Speaker 5: ring light, shaped like a gender symbol for female, into
Speaker 5: the air and screams, I am Katy Perry.
Speaker 4: That's factually correct.
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna say I thought it was so good,
Speaker 5: Like I love the music video. Not everyone did, in fact,
Speaker 5: most people didn't, But I just thought it was the
Speaker 5: funniest way to kind of show how feminism has developed
Speaker 5: into this big thing in modern day that now everyone's
Speaker 5: kind of jumping on a bandwagon forgetting the real meaning
Speaker 5: behind it.
Speaker 3: I didn't completely understand what she was trying to say there,
Speaker 3: and I mean I don't think it was anything when
Speaker 3: there was meant to be a hidden secret. It was
Speaker 3: all very kind of heavy handed in terms of like
Speaker 3: this is what a woman is and feminism gets pulled
Speaker 3: away and so but I just think with Katy Perry,
Speaker 3: sometimes satire isn't where she excels. She's kind of almost
Speaker 3: better doing that when she forges her own path and
Speaker 3: does that more flippant and frothy, almost animation, unrealistic, very
Speaker 3: stylized art form, which I think a lot of people
Speaker 3: are saying, like, oh, she was never that popular, she's
Speaker 3: now that good, and like she was, she was one
Speaker 3: of the top selling female artists in the world for
Speaker 3: a very long time, and she had a very unique
Speaker 3: look about everything she did. And I think the fact
Speaker 3: that she just sold out a whole bunch of Las
Speaker 3: Vegas residencies with Katy Perry's World, like her show, and
Speaker 3: that her signature is very telling, and so I feel
Speaker 3: like she tried to tap into that here and it
Speaker 3: just maybe slightly missed the mark a little bit. But
Speaker 3: the foundation she was building on is there, I guess,
Speaker 3: is what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 5: There were a lot of brutal headlines far from nice.
Speaker 5: I want to read some out. We don't want to
Speaker 5: live in Katy Perry's women's world. A fail feminist anthem
Speaker 5: is the feminism in the room with us. Katy Perry
Speaker 5: just flopped so hard can she cover?
Speaker 4: And she recovered.
Speaker 3: Well, that's what we're gonna get into next, because obviously
Speaker 3: she's got a new album coming, there's a lot more
Speaker 3: coming from her, and that's what everyone's asking is, we're
Speaker 3: too from here.
Speaker 2: You go, girl, you were born to shine, and we're
Speaker 2: kind of just having fun being a bit sarcastic with it.
Speaker 2: It's very slapstick and very on the nose, and with
Speaker 2: this set, it's like, oh, we're like, we're not about
Speaker 2: the mail gates, but.
Speaker 1: We really are about the male gaze, and.
Speaker 2: We're really overplaying it and on the nose.
Speaker 3: I think one of the reasons why people have responded
Speaker 3: so negatively to Katie Perry's new song, apart from the
Speaker 3: fact that a lot of music critics just genuinely didn't
Speaker 3: like the material and that's their job to write their
Speaker 3: thoughts and we don't want to take that away and
Speaker 3: have them hunted down like Taylor Swift fans too, like
Speaker 3: you've still got to have that musical journalism. But I
Speaker 3: think there was so much build up to it and
Speaker 3: so much pipe around, like Katie peer, he's coming back
Speaker 3: and she's got this rebrand, and that is a good
Speaker 3: thing in many ways, but I think a lot of
Speaker 3: people also love to see a very famous woman fail
Speaker 3: and have a very public misstep, and I think a
Speaker 3: lot of it was linked to that in a way,
Speaker 3: because she finished up on American Idol, where she'd been
Speaker 3: a judge for a long time, and then after Las Vegas,
Speaker 3: there was like the safety of that residency of like
Speaker 3: you know, you only saw it if you had a ticket,
Speaker 3: and fans really loved it, and because she hadn't had
Speaker 3: a hit song for a long time and had been
Speaker 3: like many years since she released her last album, and
Speaker 3: she was also really hyping like this is a new sound,
Speaker 3: this is a new meat. And one of the things
Speaker 3: I thought was really interesting was that she had a
Speaker 3: very fashion makeover leading into launching this song, and she
Speaker 3: was at a lot of different events in these like
Speaker 3: really amazing less pop princess, like no big white boots
Speaker 3: and sparkly dress and no ice cream boobs or high
Speaker 3: ponytails or anything like that. It was much sleeker, much
Speaker 3: more fashionable. She actually has a young Australian stylist called
Speaker 3: Taddiana Waterford, who's done all of her fashion makeover and
Speaker 3: styles her. And I think even when she was like
Speaker 3: events of like Vogue World and stuff, people were talking
Speaker 3: about how amazing she looked. And she also had all
Speaker 3: the lyrics to Women's World on a cage going in
Speaker 3: and people were also just talking about how amazing she looked.
Speaker 3: And I've got to say, like her body does look
Speaker 3: a bit different in terms of like she looks like
Speaker 3: slightly smaller. It's that whole thing of like a woman
Speaker 3: can have a big makeover as long as she looks
Speaker 3: really ripped as well doing it. And so I think
Speaker 3: she was trying to tick every box of like this
Speaker 3: is what I know people like. They like a woman's
Speaker 3: body to look different, they like her to start dressing
Speaker 3: more high fashion, they like her to talk about now
Speaker 3: I'm a mother, now I'm this. Like she was doing
Speaker 3: everything right, but it's like all those things together put
Speaker 3: people offside before they even heard the song.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and she I remember her on TikTok falling into
Speaker 5: that trope of is she fashionable or is she just skinny?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And I think that, I mean she's always been super skinny.
Speaker 3: We're talking in these ridiculous entertainment things that we have
Speaker 3: for women at the moment around bodies and stuff which
Speaker 3: has just gone off the rails, and she can't be
Speaker 3: held responsible for that.
Speaker 5: But she also, like a lot of other artists like
Speaker 5: Taylor Swift, like does a full makeover rebrand for every
Speaker 5: album you put out. And I think I didn't read
Speaker 5: too much into it because I just saw it as
Speaker 5: like another era of Katy Perry, which is why I
Speaker 5: really enjoyed the ending of that music video where she
Speaker 5: was like, I'm Katy Perry, because she has talked about
Speaker 5: how this music in particular is the most.
Speaker 3: Like her, yes, and because her real name is what
Speaker 3: Catherine Hudson, Tate Hudson, So she's like just referring that
Speaker 3: I am Katy Perry right now, but in real life,
Speaker 3: I am had Friend Hudson. I think the other thing
Speaker 3: that people have really called out, and this is like
Speaker 3: a serious thing that I think deserves a lot of attention,
Speaker 3: is that in this new album there's a lot of
Speaker 3: collaboration with Doctor Luke, who's an old collaborator of hers
Speaker 3: and actually worked on a lot of her big hits
Speaker 3: in the past. They haven't worked together for a while,
Speaker 3: but they've come back together for this new album. And
Speaker 3: why people are upset about that is that with doctor Luke.
Speaker 3: In twenty fourteen, Kesher sued him for sexual assault and battery,
Speaker 3: sexual harassment, gender violence, and emotional abuse. Doctor Luke always
Speaker 3: denied the claims, and then he counter seed Kesha for defamation,
Speaker 3: alleging that Kesher, her mother, and her management had fabricated
Speaker 3: all of these claims to get out of a record
Speaker 3: contract with him that she had previously signed. This went
Speaker 3: on for a long time, and Kesha has spoken about
Speaker 3: why it sort of kept her for releasing music for
Speaker 3: a long time. And then in twenty sixteen a judge
Speaker 3: dismissed all of Kesh's claims. Kesher also made allegations that
Speaker 3: doctor Luke had raped Katy Perry, which Katy Perry and
Speaker 3: doctor Luke have always denied, and then in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: a judge rule that Kesher had made defamatory comments by
Speaker 3: saying that, and so in twenty twenty three, Luke and
Speaker 3: Kesher settled this defamation claim. So very lot yeah, so
Speaker 3: a lot of really upsetting facts and allegations in there.
Speaker 3: It should also be said that like doctor Luke, has
Speaker 3: never been convictive of anything, but across the music industry,
Speaker 3: there have been a lot of allegations from a lot
Speaker 3: of different people, and there's this thought that people don't
Speaker 3: across the industry, particularly women, don't want to work with
Speaker 3: him anymore. So when Katy Perry released a feminist anthem
Speaker 3: called Woman's World and she was a collaborator with this
Speaker 3: man who had had these accusations against him, a lot
Speaker 3: of people thought that those two things shouldn't go together
Speaker 3: and really judged her for that.
Speaker 5: Which is a fair criticism. And I'm surprised that she
Speaker 5: hasn't commented on that in particular because I'm also surprised
Speaker 5: why she chose him in the first place, Like she's
Speaker 5: Katy Perry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, not just sort of defending her at all.
Speaker 3: I think that that sort of this conversation is an
Speaker 3: important one to have. I just think we don't know
Speaker 3: in terms of like did she still have a contract
Speaker 3: with him, Like you know, sometimes you sign a certain
Speaker 3: amount of albums you have to do with someone. Also,
Speaker 3: a lot of her most popular songs have been in
Speaker 3: collaboration with him. So if you're wanting to have this
Speaker 3: kind of big comeback, you maybe sometimes would defer to
Speaker 3: the person you'd worked with in the past. So I
Speaker 3: just think it's very laated.
Speaker 5: I don't think it would have been as big of
Speaker 5: a deal if the album was about something else than feminism.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but because it is, it just feels a bit gross.
Speaker 3: I don't think it would have been a big of
Speaker 3: a deal for people if people liked the song. I
Speaker 3: know that sounds really simplistic, but if people like a
Speaker 3: song or a piece of art or anything like that,
Speaker 3: you can be forgiven nearly anything in the entertainm industry,
Speaker 3: Like we've seen it time and time again. It's a
Speaker 3: fair criticism, but I think there's a small group of
Speaker 3: people that are really kind of were not going to
Speaker 3: like it. In any case, there's been a.
Speaker 5: Lot of commentary talking about how she's stuck in twenty ten,
Speaker 5: which is kind of where she had like her big
Speaker 5: I guess, like her big shot at stardom. It was like, well,
Speaker 5: after I kissed a girl during her teenage dream kind
Speaker 5: of years. Yeah, and I do remember that. What this
Speaker 5: music video reminded me of is her music video she
Speaker 5: did for TGIF Last Friday Night with Rebecca Black.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's a great music video.
Speaker 5: It just reminded me how it was during that time
Speaker 5: where Rebecca Black put out Friday she got absolutely slammed
Speaker 5: on the Internet. I think it was the first form
Speaker 5: of like severe internet trolling we've ever seen, and she
Speaker 5: was like thirteen years old. She was just doing it
Speaker 5: for fun. Katie Perry made a song called Last Friday Night,
Speaker 5: had Rebecca Black in the music video and literally rebranded
Speaker 5: Rebecca blackause that song just went off, and it felt
Speaker 5: like she was trying to do the same thing for
Speaker 5: Tricia Patus in this music video.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's always been really good at tapping into internet memes,
Speaker 3: internet culture, whether it's bringing people who have had like
Speaker 3: a viral TikTok on something on stage or something like
Speaker 3: that back in the day bringing them into her music video.
Speaker 3: That's the thing. It's like she's doing almost everything right,
Speaker 3: but it's just not landing. And it's interesting why it's
Speaker 3: not landing for her, but it is when you look
Speaker 3: around the other pop stars that we're really gravitating towards
Speaker 3: at the moment. It's like Chapelmarone has blown up so
Speaker 3: much and her style is so obviously I think like
Speaker 3: her current songs are better than Katie Pere's new song.
Speaker 3: But also it's this very kind of like hyper feminized,
Speaker 3: like pop star, very girlhood music and we're loving it.
Speaker 3: And then I think like Sabrina Carpenter is the most
Speaker 3: intense throwback to an old pop star era of like
Speaker 3: a tiny blonde woman dancing on the stage, polypood dance
Speaker 3: around the stage, and a cute little pop star outfits
Speaker 3: singing silly little songs. Like that's so retro, but it
Speaker 3: feels like it's really hitting at the moment.
Speaker 5: And Charlie XX well, like they're all three different pop stars,
Speaker 5: and like they're all pop stars but in three different categories.
Speaker 5: And it feels like what's interesting with them is that
Speaker 5: they've been doing music for a long time, but they've
Speaker 5: never changed themselves for a new album, Like they constantly
Speaker 5: stick to like what they know, what they love, Like
Speaker 5: I think a lot of I've seen a lot of
Speaker 5: memes with them comparing them to the Powerpuff Girls, like
Speaker 5: shapeul Roan and then Serena Carpenter is like cute c girlye.
Speaker 5: Charlie XCX is like sexy girly, and then Katy Perry
Speaker 5: is just like constantly trying to evolve, to keep up,
Speaker 5: and I feel like she can't keep up right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe like she's slightly mischarged turn her team. They
Speaker 3: think we want this big feminist anthem, which also sounds
Speaker 3: like it's been made for TikTok, And we know that's
Speaker 3: how artists get their songs play at the moment if
Speaker 3: people sample the song on TikTok. So it feels like
Speaker 3: that's where it was going. But it's like, we just
Speaker 3: want to sing about espresso and not feminism at the moment.
Speaker 3: Whether that's right or wrong, it's just where we're at.
Speaker 5: So the piece I read in today's episode, all the
Speaker 5: hidden messages in Katy Perry's music video. We will link
Speaker 5: that in the show notes. It's so funny. Go check
Speaker 5: that out. Thank you so much for listening to The
Speaker 5: Spill today. If you want something different, Claire Stevens has
Speaker 5: interviewed Rob Mills for her podcast, But are you happy
Speaker 5: they had such a brilliant conversation. We will link that
Speaker 5: episode in our show notes. We will see you back
Speaker 5: here in your podcast feed at three pm tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Bye bye,