Katy Perry is pretty far down the runway of what’s likely to be a very aggressive push for her new album, , and we might have just had the official lift-off: The release of the album’s first music video, “Woman’s World,” in which Perry positions herself as a short of satirical truth-telling robot woman, as one does. As we often do in our day-to-day lives, we found ourselves contemplating the old question as we watched Perry’s new video, which juxtaposes the cheerful summer vibes of the song proper with a broadside attack on the way female empowerment is frequently co-opted by capitalism. (Including briefly cutting the song entirely to drop an anvil on her own hyper-sexualized “empowered” image.
..before starting back up with a slightly different flavor of hyper-sexualized image.
) Then she gets some , walks around, shoves a gasoline pump in her butt, and steals some poor woman’s ring light and phone. It’s..
. provocative? Look, it’s always a little strange when a song that doesn’t appear to be overtly satirical—and at least from a straight lyrical analysis, “Woman’s World” feels like a pretty straight putt, blasting platitudes over some pretty basic synth riffs—with something that’s trying to be at least a little more complex. (It tends to carry a whiff of having one’s cake and then shoving it in your robot boots, too, especially if you view it in light of , after it was revealed that she worked with Dr.
Luke on it.) The whole thing is certa.
