Textual Analysis of Katy Perry E.T

Katy Perry Music Video Analysis

Katy Perry is an artist famous for her “bad girl” attitude and desire to always try something different. Her music video “E.T” is a prime example of this. The song has a pop, electric genre with a very unusual and twisted conceptive music video. The film was directed by Floria Sigismondi, well known for her dark, feminine work. The main concept of the video is that Perry has fallen in love with a foreigner.

The film begins with “Where in the World Can My Lover Be?” by Midge Williams, according to Andrew Goodwin’s analysis form his book “Dancing in the Distraction Factory”, there is always a relationship between the music and the visuals; the audience can only see large piles of old rubbish. Therefore, this tells the audience that we are watching a video set in the future, a future surrounded by waste which amplifies views of a large percent of the population, including Katy Perry.

Then the music video really begins to demonstrate the twisted, theatrical characteristics of the genre; a large Sputnik like spacecraft then appears soaring through the sky and a close-up shot is shown onto Kanye West. Goodwin’s analysis explains how the demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups. Kanye West is a famous artists with millions of fans; by having an immediate shot directly on his face singing, it captures the attention of the audience as they can see someone they recognise. Richard Dyre’s “Star Theory”  expresses how different stars align themselves with ideology or their own individual trademark style, in this case, it is Kanye West and his bis sunglasses.

The spacecraft then moves away as Kanye West finishes his verse, although the audience at this point is expecting to see Katy Perry, the director adds a twist to the music video as we see a strange, floating alien wearing layers of light fabric. Again, there is a connection between the lyrics and the visuals in which she sings the bridge of “your from a whole other world, a different dimension”

Throughout the video (after she is finally revealed) Perry wears heavy cosmetics such as colourful face paints, she wears cat-like and reptile-like eyes and large headdresses. This is done to show her as an alien to make a large connection with herself and the song. The inspiration for these costumes and intertextual reference were said to be from the greek myth of Perseus and Medusa; the snake-like head is even shown during the video.

“The Male Gaze” by Laura Mulrey expresses a theory by a feminist how the audience positioning is assumed by the record label to be consisted of heterosexual males. However, as this music video was directed by an extreme feminist, the objectification of Katy Perry is not shown in this video. However, during the middle 8 section of the song, Katy appears in the waste wearing a gladiator styled costume (again this is an intertextual reference to the myth of Perseus). This costume shows Perry’s silhouette and it can be said that this is a small glimpse of her as a sexual object. This is again shown after she has found her lover.

Emily Phillips