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Katy Perry’s “UR So Gay” Makes Her Not an LGBT+ Icon

 

Katy Perry’s sexuality has been sort of ambiguous, since her hit “I Kissed a Girl”, people pondering if was a song about one time experimentation, or if it was in fact a long about her sexuality, and enjoying it, but Katy finally made a few statements about her sexuality, to quell fans curiosity.

After saying that her strict upbringing by her pastor parents, and deep experiences with youth groups that were pro-conversion therapy kept her from being comfortable and caused her to “pray the gay away“, Perry was exposed to members of the LGBTQ+ community, and realized everything she’d been feeling was natural, and that she could accept herself for who she was.

Meeting actual people that were part of the LGBT+ community helped changed her perception about what she’d been taught, and she said in her speech that, “They were nothing like I had been taught to fear. They were the most free, strong, kind and inclusive people I have ever met. They stimulated my mind, and they filled my heart with joy, and they danced with joy while doing it.”

She ended her speech by saying, “No longer can I sit in silence. I have to stand up for what I feel is true, and that is equality and justice for all, period.”

However, this is a perfect time to bring up Perry’s other song from the same album as “I Kissed a Girl”, which was “UR So Gay,” when I bought the album as a young gay person, I bought it for “I Kissed a Girl” and was shocked and horrified when I heard “UR So Gay”.

UR So Gay opens with, “I hope you hang yourself with your H&M scarf, while jacking off listening to Mozart, you bitch and moan about LA, wishing you were in the rain reading Hemingway”, and continues to the chorus, where Perry sings that the character is, “You’re so gay and you don’t even like boys, no you don’t even like, no you don’t even like, no you don’t even like boys”.

The song, apparently about a “meterosexual man” which is just a term used to slander straight men that bathe, or moisturize, or have “artistic” past times, is a ragingly homophobic song.

During an interview just after the album came out, Perry was asked if the song ‘UR So Gay’ portrayed a negative stereotype, and her answer was;

Every time I play that song, everybody has come back laughing. I’m not the type of person who walks around calling everything gay. That song is about a specific guy that I used to date and specific issues that he had. The song is about my ex wearing guy liner and taking emo pictures of himself in the bathroom mirror. The listeners have to read the context of the song and decide for themselves.”

The answer is yes, the song is homophobic, and also rude. It’s pointless, and Perry is apparently upset enough that her ex wants to read Hemingway in the rain that she decides he’s no longer straight. Of course there’s nothing wrong with being not straight, but Perry is using it as an insult. She also hopes that he’ll “hang himself”, for being “gay” because he has interests that she doesn’t like. Perry sounds like an asshole in the song, and the lyrics don’t improve after the first verse.
I personally don’t count her as an LGBT+ icon, and while she can be a member of the community, I won’t hold her in any kind of positive light until there is some sort of apology for the song, or I myself decide that I see positive change. Just because someone is a member of the LGBT+ community doesn’t make them progressive, Caitlyn Jenner is a perfect example of that. Let’s not give Katy Perry more praise than she deserves.

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