Finally, it seems like Katy Perry may have learned from her mistakes of the past. After receiving major criticisms for music videos and performances that involved major cultural appropriation (I mean, come on girl — you didn't think for a second that dressing as a geisha would elicit backlash?) and giving an interview to Rolling Stone that suggested she still didn't understand why cultural appropriation is a big no-no, I am happy to say that Katy Perry's new music video for "This Is How We Do" is (mostly) free of insensitivities of that nature. I mean, yes, there's a cartoon ice cream cone twerking, but I'll give her a pass for that one because...well, it's a cartoon ice cream cone. That's not offensive, just weird.
The video, which seems to involve a lot of throwbacks to sixties and fifties culture, as well as a lot of dudes dressed kind of like Pee-Wee Herman, is as bubblegum, crazy, and upbeat as we've all come to expect from Perry: She even wears a pizza swimsuit with pizza earrings. It'll probably get played on MTV a lot, when they're not too busy airing reality shows to actually play some music once in a while. In other words, it's fun, and classic Katy Perry.
Back to those accusations of cultural appropriation, though — Perry previously told Rolling Stone for their new cover story the following of the backlash surrounding her stylistic decisions, particularly when it came to that "Dark Horse" music video, and the performance which, as Rolling Stone put it, involved "back-up dancers dressed as mummies with big backsides, large breasts, and plump lips ... supposedly stereotyping the black female body":
She knows the rules are changing, that "cultural appropriation" is increasingly uncool, but she's not thrilled about it. "I guess I'll just stick to baseball and hot dogs, and that's it," she says. "I know that's a quote that's gonna come to fuck me in the ass, but can't you appreciate a culture? I guess, like, everybody has to stay in their lane? I don't know."
I hope based on the fact that this new video doesn't involve appropriation of any cultures, it means Perry's come a long way since giving that interview.
Image: KatyPerryVEVO/YouTube
