Posts Tagged 'part of me'
March 28, 2012 R. Rowell	6 comments
This is the Part of Me That You're Never Gonna Ever Take Away From Me! NO!
Katy will KICK YOUR ASS!
OK, I'm a shameless fan of this song. I love "Part of Me" more than I love any of Katy's songs, and that's really saying something. Yes, she is not the greatest singer to ever grace the pop music scene, but she's certainly one of the more electric personalities we've had in the past decade (Madre Monster not withstanding). So now, Katy Perry makes a long-form commercial for the Marines…
Soldier Katy 😀
Actually, I don't see it that way at all. In the video, Katy's character has a boyfriend who was clearly a cheating bastard. She didn't just become distraught and go to the Marines. A lot of people don't want to give Katy the credit – if you actually watch the video, she is clearly making a point: women can be tough, too. She hacks off all her hair (it was a wig, really, mind you) and tapes down her chest (this is actually a major point) and goes off to boot camp where she bonds with her fellow recruits and really seems to have the makings of a soldier.
Part of Me is NOT really about her failed marriage to Russell Brand. It's about something a lot bigger: women are too often regarded as sex symbols, objectified for their feminine beauty and wiles. Katy has been blessed with incredible looks and a beautiful body and it's not a stretch to say a lot of guys just drool over her for her more superficial aspects and don't really look at her as a person. Well, as we have seen from Katy before, she likes to have a message in her songs, and it's really obvious here: Women are people, too, and have hopes and dreams and aren't just toys to be played with. The extreme of joining the Marines makes her point I think as directly as she can.
I'm impressed that she went to this length to drive a point home and she really plays the part well. Is it propaganda? Was she paid by the Marines to make it? I don't get that impression, but I can see how people would jump to that conclusion. Katy is all for the empowerment of young women to not let abusive or unfaithful partners keep them down, or let anyone keep you from being who you really are. Yes, you could parallel this song to the fact that Russell Brand never really condoned her partying or really supported her career. That's a fair reading, but I think what Katy conveys here in this video is perhaps one of the most powerful statements made in a music video for quite sometime, and I have to hand it to her: it's another great video, and perhaps her very best.
The work that she put into this is impressive and I don't think you'll get too many pop stars to do what she had to do to make this work!
Katy's marvelous blue coiffure
And now, she can get back to being Katy Perry 🙂
Categories: Music Tags: katheryn elizabeth hudson, katy perry, part of me
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