In a time during sexual prosecution – you know the whole defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman – Katy Perry emerges from oblivion only to drop hits that sucks off the touchy subject. Her first single which is big in the wannabe-bisexual world, “I Kissed a Girl,” brushes on the subject as simply and “experimental game” and nothing more. Sexuality, it would seem to Miss Perry is no big deal, as it shouldn’t be at all. But while the would be tolerance of allowing yourself to explore the ranges of your own sexuality, Perry seems to have the same mindset of a burly redneck because while girls kissing girls is a-okay on screen, homosexual males (or men who don’t fit the description of a manly man) isn’t.
This is old news, I know. I’ve come late in the game strictly because I wanted to be sure that I wanted to talk about it. But with Prop. 8 floating around in the news and all over the blogosphere, being a sensitive man is still a bad thing. While the lyrics don’t word it specifically, apparently listening to Mozart, reading Hemingway, caring about the environment, being a vegetarian, dressing differently, eating healthy, etc. makes a guy gay, even if he doesn’t “like boys.” But no one notices it because her catchy lyrics, simple beats and her being virtually eye candy for the masses blinds people to the fact.
Jyg tried to argue that with me – “You should see the music video,” she told me in a car one day as we were listening to Perry’s “Hot N Cold” – but music videos hardly reflect the meaning of the song, just the interpretation a director has of it. I want to defend myself by saying, I don’t think Katy Perry’s a homophobe – she did kiss a girl and liked it, right? – but she’s not really helping the image of the new man that people both want to see and insult when it appears.
In a time of change, evolution and revolution, we’re attempting to make the new man a sensitive one. Someone who doesn’t need his girth and his muscle to define who he is or what he’s supposed to. In a time when men are volunteering to become Stay-at-home dads (SAHD) while their wives go on a follow their dream career, or a time when a group of men such as the Men’s Resource of South Texas believe that men can be helped out of the violent mindset and machismo of our fathers, we’re still willing to crucify the cultured, sophisticated, sensitive man because he doesn’t follow an archaic definition. A man cannot show love to his children without showing some sort of weakness. A man is not allowed to cry without showing some weakness. A man on his hand and knees, broken and spent, cannot ask for help without showing some weakness. A man cannot show that he is educated around his girlfriend without showing some weakness – “Honey, I know you’re smart, but try to keep it to yourself. You’re just muscle and a face for me.”
So we failed to push the new image of man foward – one where he is still a protector, but a kind, gentle one.The experiment has failed because as much as I would like to disagree with what I’m about to say, celebrities like Katy Perry have power to move and influence the youth of America, but rather using that supposed power to help change the world, they waste it on sappy songs about how a guy who isn’t like all the jocks in high school may not be worth dating.
The Life of Ennui Prayer 