Blog 9: Katy Perry - How Her Pop Videos Appeal to Her Target Audience and Her Private Life

Blog 9: Katy Perry - How Her Pop Videos Appeal to Her Target Audience and Her Private Life

Katy Perry's target audience is that of young girls from the age of roughly six to their late teens. In order to appeal to these specific target audiences Katy has to display her image in a certain way. She has to not only portray herself as that of an older sister to her audiences, someone they can turn to in a time of need but also as a friend to her audience. She portrays herself in this way by displaying some of the social and everyday anxiety's that young teenage girls have throughout life within her pop videos. Therefore causing her audience to appeal and relate to her more. She also portrays herself as a figure that young girls can look up to, she achieves this by have a unique mise-en-scene that makes her appear sexy and good looking in a none threatening way. 

Almost all of Katy Perry's music videos have at least one and most likely more of Goodwins stereotypical characteristics of music videos. For example:

This video of Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl" involves quite a few of Goodwins characteristic 

Laura Mulveys idea ofthe male gaze for example is used massively throughout the course of this video by the mise-en-scene, as well as the lyrics and general body language within the video by Katy herself and the other characters. This video also involves Goodwins 2nd characteristic of the lyrics relating to the narrative of the media product, this is shown by the very suggestive lyrics sung in her version of a Sexy voice and this is portrayed by all the sex appeal going on throughout the scenes. 

The last obvious Goodwin characteristic that we can pick up on is that of the very eemphasizednotion of looking by which the cameras are always focusing on areas of the female body in order to attract more attention to the video. Whilst correlating with all these typical characteristics of music videos Katy still achieves to remain her image as an older sister and friend as the video is about being unsure of your sexuality at this age and not hiding it but instead being comfortable with yourself.

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Another example of one of Katy Perry's media products that contain extracts of Goodwins characteristics is that of her video for "California Girls" 

This video for "California Girls" was filmed shortly after she had got engaged to Russel Brand, we believe that because of his sexual influence this video has much more sex appeal than the rest of Katy's empowering videos as this one leans more to the side of harlotry. This video is very heavy on Laura Mulveys male gaze theory, such as "I Kissed A Girl" however more so in this video. Godwins characteristic of meeting the record labels demands are also present within this video as there are frequent close ups and shots that appeal to the record labels male audience and therefore increasing the amount of male views that the video will achieve. Continuing on with this point there are many alluring shots of women and the female body which is another one of Goodwins characteristics being the notion of looking. This is not like her image that she had previously worked so hard to set up. 

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The next example is that of "Wide Awake", this video is after Katy and Russel's divorce and during this video she is acting as if this is an apology for her previous "California Girls" video as it was not her nor who she wants to be.

The narrative for this video is her disregarding her previous "California Girls" video and essentially apologizing for it, this is her trying to return to her roots. This video contains many inter-textual references to her other videos such as "Fireworks" and "California Girls" this is one of Godwins characteristics, there is also a reference to her  ex husband Russel Brand as there is a scene of her punching his representation in the face. This is an empowering scene for women everywhere and it shows her "Getting over" Russel and her marriage to him, therefore encouraging young girls everywhere to be true to themselves and thus gaining more attention for this video. There is also a relationship between the lyrics and the video being that the lyrics portray her waking up from her slumber as someone who isn't who she wants to be and the video displays this very with lots of very powerful scenes of her braking away from closing walls and the strawberry symbolizing Adam and eve and their wrong doings compared to hers.

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The last video from Katy Perry's contribution to media that i will be talking about is tat of her newer release "Roar"

This video again is returning to Katy Perry's roots that she hoped to portray through this video and her earlier ones. Its is a very empowering video to women and young teenage girls everywhere as it shows her being the "Dominant Character" within the music video as she survives in the jungle on her own with no help from the man in the video. In contrast to Goodwin notion of looking, there is not many voyeuristic scenes within this video and any scenes that could be considered so are not so much disrespectful but instead a statement of her saying "I'm not wearing this because men want me to, i'm wearing this because i want to. There is also close relation between the lyrics and how the video sets up its narrative. This is shown by that of the lyrics containing lines that reflect her being the powerful member in her life and ruling of her own actions and the video also displays this as such by her fighting off dangerous animals such as the tiger that she has been representing throughout this video. 

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In conclusion Katy Perry has released many different types of music videos in the past and throughout her career as a singer and songwriter but she has always tried to stay true to her brand image and appeal to her always faithful teenage girl fans instead of the male audience that are appealed to during "California Girls".