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kitewithfishBoth videos I mention here are on youtube- the longer (8min) version of Born This Way was my reference point for this.
Katy Perry's ET seems to flip the premise of Gaga's Born This Way, in a kind of fetishizing of the alien other. Though Katy Perry is presented in the alienating garb of a creature from outside of earth, her lyrics superimpose a vulerable, pentratable figure for a dangerous creature. The sequence in which she spins through space seems to be an attempt to focus on her clothing as strange and alien, rather than her person as strange and alien- her stillness and passivity to the camera marks her as exotic but nonthreatening- a common theme for attraction in mixed race women, steeped in racism. She seems to owe more to Amidala than to Gaga directly- the focus on garb in which she cannot physically defend herself, paired with a crown-like headpiece, again shapes the perception of stillness and lack of agency. She's strange and beautiful, but not threatening.
The focus on her walk on earth, amidst the labeled wreckage of humanity, marks her as someone herself exoticising the alien and the other in her travels- a common critique of colonialism her brought again into troubling attention. That her eventually focuses on a robot stirs at first comparisons to Wall-E, and the still-glowing power cell in the robot's chest also suggests EVA's glowing markings after she located life on earth. Having situated this scene in a traditional format, the revelation that the robot still lives and contains something is projected clearly well, and presents an opportunity for Kanye to be reedited into the film. However, the robot revitalizes as a naked black man with albinism.
Albinism can signify a number of messages in film, many of them negative. People with albinism, or people with average pigmentation who are made up to pass for people with albinism, are more often cast in villainous roles than protagonist. In films like "The Princess Bride" and "The DaVinci Code", people with normal pigmentation made up as people with albinism play characters with an inner perversion and violence that expresses itself in aggression and torture. This relates again to the lingering theme that societally defined beauty is also an indicator of moral goodness- these characters are nonaverage, and socially defined as ugly, because their physical appearance reflects their evil souls.
The black man with albinism here only takes a few moments on screen- Katy Perry's kiss transformed him, or liberated him, from a robot into a flesh and blood person, and he embraces her. As they walk through the ruins into the sunset, Katy Perry's flowing skirt falls away and her lower body is revealed to be faun-like, with small hooves and the backwards knee of a herbivore quadruped. (My money's on a deer's butt, but that's me.) Their immediate pairing seems to suggest a kind of equality between them- her animalistic lower half and his low-pigment skin are equated in the mind of viewer by their pose as a couple walking away from the camera into the future. He is naked, she still wears her top and some remains of her belt.
The flowing clothes from the earlier segments of Katy Perry spinning in space may have had the point of concealing her alien legs from the audience, but seem to have little to do with the movement of the story. Do these two know each other? Are they brought together, like Wall-E and Eva, by separate missions? Is she saving him or collecting him, like the sunglasses she retrieves from a shattered case labeled "Earth sunglasses", like a museum piece? Unlike Gaga's BORN THIS WAY, Perry's video does not highlight the disturbing aspects of the alien creature moving through space. Though Perry's body is rendered alien by CGI, her enveloping costumes and hairstyling, she is still and her lyrics beg for abduction, an invitation to use her, though she herself is portrayed consistently as the alien creature. Gaga's video demands power, claims it, and does not hesitate to confuse or disturb. Katy Perry goes out of her way to avoid being offputting- even her animalistic features fit the mold of a typically feminine and passive creature.
Holy fuck, I am just not going to proofread that thing at all
Katy Perry's ET seems to flip the premise of Gaga's Born This Way, in a kind of fetishizing of the alien other. Though Katy Perry is presented in the alienating garb of a creature from outside of earth, her lyrics superimpose a vulerable, pentratable figure for a dangerous creature. The sequence in which she spins through space seems to be an attempt to focus on her clothing as strange and alien, rather than her person as strange and alien- her stillness and passivity to the camera marks her as exotic but nonthreatening- a common theme for attraction in mixed race women, steeped in racism. She seems to owe more to Amidala than to Gaga directly- the focus on garb in which she cannot physically defend herself, paired with a crown-like headpiece, again shapes the perception of stillness and lack of agency. She's strange and beautiful, but not threatening.
The focus on her walk on earth, amidst the labeled wreckage of humanity, marks her as someone herself exoticising the alien and the other in her travels- a common critique of colonialism her brought again into troubling attention. That her eventually focuses on a robot stirs at first comparisons to Wall-E, and the still-glowing power cell in the robot's chest also suggests EVA's glowing markings after she located life on earth. Having situated this scene in a traditional format, the revelation that the robot still lives and contains something is projected clearly well, and presents an opportunity for Kanye to be reedited into the film. However, the robot revitalizes as a naked black man with albinism.
Albinism can signify a number of messages in film, many of them negative. People with albinism, or people with average pigmentation who are made up to pass for people with albinism, are more often cast in villainous roles than protagonist. In films like "The Princess Bride" and "The DaVinci Code", people with normal pigmentation made up as people with albinism play characters with an inner perversion and violence that expresses itself in aggression and torture. This relates again to the lingering theme that societally defined beauty is also an indicator of moral goodness- these characters are nonaverage, and socially defined as ugly, because their physical appearance reflects their evil souls.
The black man with albinism here only takes a few moments on screen- Katy Perry's kiss transformed him, or liberated him, from a robot into a flesh and blood person, and he embraces her. As they walk through the ruins into the sunset, Katy Perry's flowing skirt falls away and her lower body is revealed to be faun-like, with small hooves and the backwards knee of a herbivore quadruped. (My money's on a deer's butt, but that's me.) Their immediate pairing seems to suggest a kind of equality between them- her animalistic lower half and his low-pigment skin are equated in the mind of viewer by their pose as a couple walking away from the camera into the future. He is naked, she still wears her top and some remains of her belt.
The flowing clothes from the earlier segments of Katy Perry spinning in space may have had the point of concealing her alien legs from the audience, but seem to have little to do with the movement of the story. Do these two know each other? Are they brought together, like Wall-E and Eva, by separate missions? Is she saving him or collecting him, like the sunglasses she retrieves from a shattered case labeled "Earth sunglasses", like a museum piece? Unlike Gaga's BORN THIS WAY, Perry's video does not highlight the disturbing aspects of the alien creature moving through space. Though Perry's body is rendered alien by CGI, her enveloping costumes and hairstyling, she is still and her lyrics beg for abduction, an invitation to use her, though she herself is portrayed consistently as the alien creature. Gaga's video demands power, claims it, and does not hesitate to confuse or disturb. Katy Perry goes out of her way to avoid being offputting- even her animalistic features fit the mold of a typically feminine and passive creature.
Holy fuck, I am just not going to proofread that thing at all
