Rant
I like Katy Perry, and liked her back when she was Katy Hudson and I was a little conservative Christian boy (so, so long ago). What pisses me off is when people comment on the Christian part of her career so negatively, because she was 14, 15 years old when she signed her contract and released her album. A lot of the negative comments relating to that don't seem to grasp how a person's worldview can change in a few years at that age, let alone seven years. I know that I'm a rather different person than I was in 2001 (when Perry's first album came out), and she's just a few years older than me, so I don't expect anything different from her.
I guess...leaving aside whatever reasons she might have for her current image (which, since I've been following her since 2001 and am thrilled to see her level of success today, I can only really see the two images she's presented - the Christian artist who within Christian circles came off as rebellious and the mainstream artist who, spirituality aside, isn't necessarily all that much different), there seems to be this reaction to the fact that she was a Christian artist that pisses me off. For example, the Slant review of the album didn't praise the album, which is fine. I like the album, and that's enough for me. But the closing line:
Alas, I suppose it's foolish to expect progressiveness from a girl whose debut was a Christian gospel album.
pisses me off too much. It's making an assumption of how all Christians (or Christian musicians, or whatever) are, and using it to shoot someone down. And while I grew up Christian (specifically Southern Baptist), I also am gay, and I've had to fight stereotypes on that end to people I've grown up with or am close to now. I've met a lot of people through my role as head of my campus's LGBT organization (which more or less makes me one of the most prominent gay people in a student body of 27,000) who are offended (and rightly so) when someone does something blatantly offensive because of their sexual or gender identity who see nothing wrong with...doing it right back. I guess my thought is this: if we're trying to break a cycle of stereotypes against our minority communities, we need to have the recognition of when we're doing it so we can prevent it, because if we come off as hypocritical, it does us no good.
And...wow, I totally did not mean to write this much. Rant over.
I guess...leaving aside whatever reasons she might have for her current image (which, since I've been following her since 2001 and am thrilled to see her level of success today, I can only really see the two images she's presented - the Christian artist who within Christian circles came off as rebellious and the mainstream artist who, spirituality aside, isn't necessarily all that much different), there seems to be this reaction to the fact that she was a Christian artist that pisses me off. For example, the Slant review of the album didn't praise the album, which is fine. I like the album, and that's enough for me. But the closing line:
Alas, I suppose it's foolish to expect progressiveness from a girl whose debut was a Christian gospel album.
pisses me off too much. It's making an assumption of how all Christians (or Christian musicians, or whatever) are, and using it to shoot someone down. And while I grew up Christian (specifically Southern Baptist), I also am gay, and I've had to fight stereotypes on that end to people I've grown up with or am close to now. I've met a lot of people through my role as head of my campus's LGBT organization (which more or less makes me one of the most prominent gay people in a student body of 27,000) who are offended (and rightly so) when someone does something blatantly offensive because of their sexual or gender identity who see nothing wrong with...doing it right back. I guess my thought is this: if we're trying to break a cycle of stereotypes against our minority communities, we need to have the recognition of when we're doing it so we can prevent it, because if we come off as hypocritical, it does us no good.
And...wow, I totally did not mean to write this much. Rant over.