KortneyKaty Perry spoke with Laura Snapes of The Guardian about how the pandemic changed her release plans for “SMILE,” her depression during the ‘Witness’ era, how her upbringing was “pure bible thumping,” the mistakes she made in the past, using humor to deflect as a mechanism to cope and for her own fear, the allegations that have been made against her, what she hopes people take from her song “Smile,” and more.
In Perry’s twenties, her anxieties about inadequacy, about “never really truly being invited or cool or accepted”, fueled her ambition. So she made an art of excess – maximalist pop, bras squirting whipped cream, carnivalesque live shows – and titillated America right in its pleasure centres. Her efforts eventually exhausted her. “Like, what else do you have to prove after the Super Bowl?” She goes into a bug-eyed, Seinfeld-worthy rush of hysteria. “You did it! YOU DID IT, HELLO? Pivot! Why do you have to keep climbing Everest! What are you proving? Are you just climbing Everest until you die? Until there was that one chance where you’re like, I’m not gonna make it?”
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Travelling the world introduced her to cultures and concepts far beyond anything she could have imagined in the Jesus bubble, though this enthusiasm would get the better of her. Cultural appropriation was a big feature of Perry’s first three albums (cornrows, geisha dresses, Egyptian imagery) and continued long after the criticism mounted. “A lot of mistakes I’ve made in the past have been juvenile lack of education,” she admits.
She acknowledged this during the Witness promotional cycle. Yet this also drew criticism from critics who said it was a sign of privilege for a white star to centre a marketing campaign around their ignorance. “If you really break it down, it takes a certain amount of privilege to think that way about me because that means you probably had access to more education, more information,” Perry counters. She acknowledges her innate advantages as a white woman. “But there is definitely not a whole lot of empathy or compassion towards people sometimes growing – or trying to fucking grow – in the spotlight. Because growth also means failing. And I’ve done a lot of falling flat on my face.”
Perry became an icon because of her ironclad hits, but also because she was goofy and unfiltered back when her female pop peers held steelier poses. She was often interviewed while getting her makeup done for a show, which I assumed was a conscious reveal of the facade. But no, she says: “It was probably the only time I was sitting still.” She acknowledged the precariousness of pop stardom in other, less intentional ways. Throughout her career, she has often joked about not resorting to shaving her head in the face of professional pressure, alluding to Britney Spears’ 2007 breakdown. The frequency of these thoughtless remarks suggested a deep-set fear. “Anyone in this intense a spotlight, they understand that the tightrope just gets tighter and smaller, and that with one word, one costume malfunction, it can all blow up,” she says. Humour had always been a way to deflect. “I have used that as a mechanism for coping and for my own fear, and have said things that have been sloppy or insensitive.”
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The latest argument to trail Perry is that it’s insensitive to release an album (and single) called Smile during a pandemic, which seems pretty miserly given that it’s about finding the will to live again. She’s unbothered. “If we don’t have hope, it can get really, really dark, and this song is not just ignorant escapism happiness. Even though some people are going through that darkness, hopefully they can hear that one person made it through.”
My trepidation about Perry’s new record is that various tracks about tempering pain with hedonism undersell her hard-won growth, although the record does find relief in the catharsis of euphoria. She sometimes still parties through the low moments, she says, then refers to the album cover, on which she’s styled as a sad clown. “It’s not like, ‘Be fucking happy! Let’s see your smile!’ I’m not stupid enough to think I won’t ever have challenges again. Now I’m grateful that I have some tools to navigate through it.”
