While it must be stated, loud and clear, that going to see a documentary on a current pop-star – a documentary that was agreed to, if not out right sanctioned by that pop-star – is a nothing short of an exercise in propaganda, Katy Perry: Part of Me delivered more of her than I expected.
Part of Me is one part concert film and one part bio-pic documentary. The film follows Katy Perry and her entourage of semis filled with pink happy things around the world for her California Dreams tour. Live performances of her songs become thematic underscores to the emotional rollercoaster of her life on the road. She goes from one side of the globe to the other, both physically and emotionally – going from being on top of the world to the valley of exhaustion and despair. In line with MTV’s old show Diary, Part of Me shows just how much work it is to look like all you do is have fun.
We all fantasize about being famous, so films like this become the voyeuristic opportunity we crave. Part of Me pulls the curtain back and delivers a look inside. Constantly being answered along the way is the question: is Katy Perry living the fantasy we all dream of?
In part, this is answered in terms of her relationship with her husband, Russell Brand. The film began shooting before they had their issues and subsequent divorce. Over the course of the film we see that the only threat to Katy’s fantasy love story with Brand was the fantasy that it would work, living the lives they both were living. Dream guy and dream career never found the choreography needed to dance together well. Part of Me wonders if maybe we can all live a fantasy, as long as it’s only one at a time.
Another way the fantasy question is answered is through the story of how you get from being an aspiring Contemporary Christian Music artist who is the daughter of traveling Pentecostal preachers to Pop Icon, bar none. Known then as Katheryn Hudson, she played churches, youth conferences, and even the chapel of my alma mater, Calvin College. Years later, after many twists and turns, she assumed the stage name Katy Perry and released the single that put her on the map of the masses, “I Kissed A Girl” (and FYI, she “liked it”). Her declaration of exploratory homosexual smooching would have killed the recording career of Katheryn Hudson – it launched Katy Perry’s like a firework.
But why?
When you consider the footage of her father and mother, standing before a crowd of people conducting faith-healings and shouting sermons, it’s clear that performers raised Katy. This is not to take anything away from what her parents are doing. As every pastor and preacher knows [I’m one myself], there is an element of performance that is involved in every worship experience. She had been going to “shows” her entire life. What is maybe even more compelling and proof of the deep connection between preacher and pop singer is what she says her ultimate goal of doing a concert is in the first place: to give people hope. Put simply, Katy Perry sees herself as a purveyor of hope. Her parents no doubt feel the same about themselves. Each in their own way, they gather the broken, the hurting, the wandering and wondering, and tell them words of hope. But why does she gather tens of thousands while most preachers gather tens of tens?
Certainly “I Kissed A Girl” took advantage of a scandalous (at least for middle America) theme to get the attention of pop culture consumers out there. But, let’s not be too hasty in saying this is why Katy Perry is famous – because that would be an outright lie. Katy Perry is at the top of the game right now because she is the creator of pop perfection. Her songs are a delight. Let’s face it, there are probably a couple hundred thousand people out there who L-O-V-E love the song “Firework.” They turn it up so loud in the car that people a block away can hear it, but they have no idea she sings “I Kissed A Girl” and would be horrified if they did.
So what is going on here?
We’re living in a cultural moment where both Katy Perry and Breaking Bad are at the top of their respective pop culture forms. Celebrate or dread that reality as you may, it’s happening. One appears to be a cotton-candy-clad pop signer [really, she wears candy on stage, or at least it’s meant to look like that] and the other a dark, violent TV show about a high school teacher turned crystal meth cooking killer because of a cancer diagnosis. One is lollypops and kittens; the other is bodies in bathtubs. We may want to keep each of these pop offerings in separate boxes, but that would be a mistake. While there are plenty of people who would encourage you to steer clear of both—drugs and candy are bad for you after all—maybe there’s something about these two cultural forces that make sense of each other and beg for one another.
On the one hand, we want pop culture to express the complex, chaotic nature of the way life feels in order for it to resonate with our actual lives. Breaking Bad does just that in grand dramatic fashion. It provides the salty reality of life that counterbalances the sweetness of Perry’s love songs. But maybe this is part of the success of “I Kissed A Girl.” While we deeply desire to have something that makes us smile, tells us we’re that we’re great, valuable, and gives us reason to dance (and does anything do that better than “Firework”?), maybe those words mean more to us coming from someone who also acknowledges the complexity of our sexual, chaotic culture. We want salty and sweet at the same time. Thus “Firework” is all the more powerful when it comes from the same source as “I Kissed A Girl.” Perry wisely delivers both in her performances. Her ability to provide hope is enhanced by her ability to relate to why we need it. Maybe this too is something she learned from her parents.
How many preachers could learn from this? Rather than presenting themselves as a sage on the stage who knows the path to the good life, maybe a little more vulnerability, honesty and bleeding in public is what’s needed. It may just be the fact that Katy Perry doesn’t only give us part of her that makes her so important to so many.
Katy Perry: Part of Me shows both the salty and sweet parts of being a famous pop icon. In our iTunes world where we’re invited to not take albums as a whole, but select only the singles we like, Part of Me invites you to download all of Perry’s story. And, here is the real question then: Can you love part of Katy Perry without taking her as a whole? Can you embrace her fireworks without accepting her kisses too? And if we try to take just part of her, are we actually missing the depth of what she’s offering in the first place?
Part of me wonders.
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Eric Kuiper is the Young Adult Life Director at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. If you enjoy this article, you might also want to check out his other writings on his own blog, Burning PineCones, and on rednoW.