An incisive critique, which has little to do with the actual music, about a Katy Perry music video, from David Montgomery, at liberty.me:
There is no agony like heartbreak.
This truth is the basis for the most effective and most subversive piece of government propaganda I have ever seen.
I am referring, as inconceivable as it may seem, to a Katy Perry music video. It’s titled Part of Me. The video has been watched over 313 million times on Youtube alone. The TV broadcast stats are likely just as staggering.
The song itself is a power pop track with a driving chorus. It’s a breakup anthem about turning the pain of relationship betrayal into perseverance and inner strength.
But the song’s incarnation as a music video is a cold-blooded masterwork of emotional manipulation. The video transmogrifies the song into military propaganda par excellence. We witness a sweet and vulnerable young woman find personal salvation by transforming into a professional killer.
The Fantasy Begins
The video starts with Katy’s discovery that her lover has being lying to her. Interrupting his flirtation with another woman, Katy tells him off and leaves him behind. She pulls her car into a gas station, and inside a message captures her attention:
All Women Are Created Equal, Then Some Become Marines
She stares at the recruiting slogan, and in a moment of wide-eyed revelation decides that joining the Marines is her path to salvation.
Katy’s transformation begins in the gas station bathroom. She strips away her femininity and individuality. She chops off her hair, removes her jewelry, tightly binds her breasts in bandages, and changes into a hooded sweatshirt. Next shot she is at Camp Pendleton handing over her personal belongings – clothes, phone, keys – in exchange for military fatigues and boots. She has become property of the United States Marine Corps.
https://bananas.liberty.me/katy-perrys-killer-propaganda/
To continue reading: Katy Perry’s Killer Propoganda
See also “In Memoriam,” SLL, 5/25/15
Reblogged this on Starvin Larry.