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Katy Perry is one of those performers with whom I have a contentious relationship. “Hot N Cold” and “California Gurls” are my driving-on-the-freeway anthems, and yet I hate “Waking Up in Vegas” — and I’ve got a few issues with her new single, “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.).” It’s less the song itself than the eight-minute short film of a music video, and Perry’s bad impersonation of a nerdy girl.
Being nerdy is less about how you look than how you act. So putting aside the bad makeup/hair and horrific headgear, “Kathy Beth Terry” by mannerism alone is a clumsy example of the uncool. Her bleating and lisping makes her sound like a mentally retarded person, and upon glimpsing even the slightest bits of fun — like when she gropes the hot guy asleep in her bed, or first steps into Rebecca Black‘s party — she looks like she’s had the mother of all orgasms. It’s not encompassing of socially awkward teenagers: It makes fun of them.
Perry is great at teenage nostalgia when it’s the rose-colored, ’80s-movie ideal. She fits perfectly into the archetype of “Teenage Dream”: first love, swim meets, and beach parties. Look up Katy Perry for the invincibility that you always wanted to cherish before you grew up. Don’t go to her for the years you’re glad you can hardly remember anymore.
Another problem is that to portray a nerd, Perry was looking backwards. The major difference from the headgeared stereotype she plays is that today’s geek girls finally have the space to be confident about their interests and their creations, which brings them the sexiness that they used to lack. Take the CollegeHumor skit “I’m Such A Nerd” with Katrina Bowden. By looks alone, she’s about as believable a weirdo as Perry, but she really sells it by throwing down with your typical dorky guy.
There’s even the YouTuber “Sexy Nerd Girl,” who professes her desire to have sex with Joss Whedon in a rap about how great all Buffy, Firefly, and his other shows are. Sure, it gets more than a little uncomfortable when she keeps saying how she wants to get him naked (“I’ll be naked too”), but this is someone who can laugh at herself enough to upload something this silly.
Another thing about “Last Friday Night”: It’s just not that compelling a song about parties gone wrong. For that, check out CollegeHumor’s excellent “I Gotta Feeling” parody.
