The music video for Woman’s World was released on Friday (July 12). It presumably celebrates female empowerment and resilience, featuring diverse women from various backgrounds and professions, highlighting their strength and unity. Nevertheless, the two-minute-55-second-long clip also juxtaposes elements of hypersexualization, as the visuals incorporate provocative imagery, such as a close-up of the 39-year-old singer’s cleavage and a group of women dancing in sexy versions of construction workers’ uniforms. As of Tuesday (July 16), the Woman’s World’s music video has amassed nearly 8 million views and an avalanche of criticism, as a YouTube user commented: “This looks like something that would be a satire for feminism in The Boys.” The Boys is a satirical superhero series that often exposes the hypocrisy and commercialization behind seemingly noble causes.
Katy Perry’s highly anticipated Woman’s World single from her upcoming album 143 has been released
Share icon Image credits: Katy Perry “This feels like a parody of feminism gone wrong,” another viewer wrote. Someone added: “This is what a feminist video clip would look like if made by a guy.” A separate individual chimed in: “Externally, she has never looked more stunning, internally she has never looked more desperate and emotionally draining. “This feels like the same road Madonna traveled.” Share icon Image credits: Katy Perry Woman’s World is Katy’s first new music since 2021, and the song was inspired by her experiences as a new mother. Moreover, it was meant to celebrate the fact that women are “unstoppable,” Today reported on Monday (July 15). The American Music Awards winner reportedly said that the new cheerful hymn was meant to be an empowering anthem that celebrates women and helps everyone embrace their “feminine divine.” “Sexy, confident / So intelligent / She is heaven-sent / So soft, so strong,” Katy sings in the first verse. The chorus later repeats the words, “It’s a woman’s world, and you’re lucky to be livin’ in it.”
Its music video has already stirred some controversy
Share icon Image credits: katyperry However, since its release on July 11, Woman’s World has been widely criticized, not just for its dissonance between its lyrics about female empowerment and the use of sexualized imagery but also as a result of Katy’s collaboration with Dr. Luke. Łukasz Sebastian Gottwald, known professionally as Dr. Luke, Tyson Trax, and Made in China, an American songwriter and record producer, was notably accused by the singer Kesha of sexual assault and abuse. Share icon Image credits: Katy Perry In October 2014, Kesha filed a bombshell lawsuit against Dr. Luke in California, USA, claiming sexual assault and battery, including an alleged rape that occurred in 2005 at Nicky Hilton’s birthday party, where the producer allegedly gave the Tik Tok hitmaker the date rape drug GHB, as per Vulture. The lawsuit also accused Luke of long-term emotional and psychological abuse involving fat-shaming. The 37-year-old singer reportedly claimed that the songwriter’s treatment caused her “severe depression, post-traumatic stress, social isolation, and panic attacks.”
Some slammed the upbeat anthem as “feminism gone wrong”
Share icon Image credits: Katy Perry Katy was involved in the aforementioned legal dispute when Kesha claimed Dr. Luke had also abused the Teenage Dream hitmaker, which Katy denied. “The new Katy Perry video is incomprehensible garbage, much like her choice to release a women’s empowerment track produced by Dr. Luke, the man who drugged and raped Kesha,” an X user (formerly known as Twitter) shared. A person noted on X: “So annoyed and disappointed I was so ready for Katy Perry’s comeback and she comes out with the most mediocre song ever AND it’s produced by Dr. Luke …”
Others critiqued the songstress’ collaboration with polarizing producer Dr. Luke
Share icon Image credit: Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic With growing backlash, Katy has seemingly responded in a video shared on her social media on Sunday (July 14), captioning: “YOU CAN DO ANYTHING! EVEN SATIRE!” In the clip, which was filmed with her backup dancers on what appears to be the construction set from her music video, the mom-of-one explained: “We’re kind of just having fun, being a bit sarcastic with it. “It’s very slapstick and very on the nose, and with this set, it’s like, ‘Ooh, we’re not about the male gaze, but we really are about the male gaze.’ Share icon Image credits: Katy Perry “And we’re really overplaying it and on the nose, because we’re about to get smashed, which is like a reset, a reset for me and a reset for my idea of feminine divine, and it’s a whole different world we go to after this. “We wanted to open this video making it look like a super high-gloss pop star video, and that’s what it is.”
The two-minute-55-second-long clip also juxtaposes elements of hypersexualization
A post shared by KATY PERRY (@katyperry) Woman’s World was significantly scrutinized by various critiques, with Vulture arguing: “The song is stuck in vague feminist empowerment, which may have worked in 2014 but falls short in 2024.” Vulture’s review, published on Friday, further stated: “As a project, the song has empowered more men than women: Perry’s writing team included four men in total, plus Chloe Angelides, a writer published by Luke’s Prescription Songs.” Meanwhile, The Guardian, which rated the song one star out of five, wrote on the same day: “Not to sound like one of those men (actually I’ll take Perry’s insistence that it’s my goddess-given right as a woman to be essentialist, OK!) but: this garbage has six writers.”
Image credits: Katy Perry “Granted, it is infernally catchy, but it is the Bic for Her of pop, the pink Yorkie for girls (get your lips around this!), a song that made me feel stupider every sorry time I listened to it.” It continued: “As well as sounding like reheated [Lady] Gaga, it also sounds brazenly like Chappell Roan’s Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl, a knowing, joyful, absurdist take on songs exactly like this that also pounds with scream-along euphoria. “Roan – along with Sabrina Carpenter and Charli xcx – is modeling how to be a pop star in 2024: they’re inventive, self-aware, silly, deep, some of the qualities Perry had at the peak of her promise but seems to have lost forever” Katy’s 143 album will come out on September 20.
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