Katy Perry seems to be attempting damage control after her latest music video was slammed across the internet.
On Thursday, the pop star shared the official video for her song “Woman’s World” from her forthcoming album, “143.”
Fans and critics quickly voiced their dissatisfaction with the ostensibly feminist anthem on X (formerly Twitter). The Guardian’s Laura Snapes called the song “garbage” that “made me feel stupider every sorry time I listened to it.” At Pitchfork, Shaad D’Souza called the tune “unfathomably tepid, irritating at best.” Vulture’s Justin Curto wrote that “Woman’s World” is “stuck in vague feminist empowerment, which may have worked in 2014 but falls short in 2024.”
More to the point, many people blasted Perry for collaborating with songwriter and producer Dr. Luke, whom pop star Kesha Sebert accused of sexual assault in a high-profile 2014 lawsuit. (Luke, real name Łukasz Sebastian Gottwald, denied the allegations and countersued Kesha for defamation. The litigation was ultimately settled in June 2023 after a legal battle lasting nearly a decade.)
Here’s what some X users had to say about Perry’s song and video.
On Saturday, Perry responded to the criticism by indicating that the video was meant to be satirical.
“You can do anything! Even satire!” she wrote on X, alongside a clip where she offers some thoughts about the “Woman’s World” video while standing alongside her background dancers on the set.
“We’re kind of just having fun, being a bit sarcastic with it,” she said. “It’s very slapstick, and very on the nose.”
“With this set, it’s like, ‘Ooh, we’re not about the male gaze, but we really are about the male gaze,’” she went on. “And we’re really overplaying it and on the nose because I’m 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.” (Halfway through the “Woman’s World” video, Perry is smashed flat by a giant anvil, after which she gets up in a new location and the song continues.)
Still, not everyone was clear on what exactly was being satirized, or what Perry was actually trying to say.
Watch Perry’s “Woman’s World” video below.
