Katy Perry's California Dreams Tour came to my home town last week. The sugar-laced extravaganza of candy canes, cupcakes, lollipops, cotton candy, and other sweet treats is an ode to childhood fantasy. The show features a mish-mash of references to the Brothers Grimm, Alice in Wonderland, the Wizard of Oz, and Rainbow Brite as it tells the story of a girl named Katy visiting a vibrant candy land in search for her pet cat, Kitty Purry, and the love of her life, the Baker Boy.
But the kid-themed bright colors, spinning peppermint forest, and wide-eyed kewpie-doll smiles belie Perry's underlying raunchy adult-themed sexual message.
Perry cursed, sang about kissing girls, pretended to eat a pot-laced "brownie," and talked in code about getting drunk, partaking in sexual orgies, melting boys' popsicles, dissing parents, and having wrong things feel so right. She appeared in an endless parade of glittery, precociously sexual "little girl" outfits that focused attention on her body, with spinning peppermint candy plastered on her chest like targets, bras shaped like cupcakes and Hershey's Kisses.
The audience ate it up.
The crowd, largely made up of screaming pre-adolescent and teen girls and their moms, matched Perry's candy-coated visuals of rainbows hearts and peppermint swirls. They were almost as colorful as the action on stage -- sporting blue and pink wigs, cupcake bras, blinking hearts and glowsticks covered in cotton candy. Girls just wanna have fun! Right?
The local media lauded Perry for providing endearing pop entertainment that "appealed to the 10-year-old girl in every young woman ... Mindless fun!"
But is it really?
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