My Take: "Firework"

A friend of mine posted a link on her facebook this week advertising the new Katy Perry song, "Firework." I have never been a Katy Perry fan--ever since I heard her song "I Kissed a Girl" during orientation my freshman year of college. Workout classes at the gym played her music as we ran around the room and did jumping jacks, all the while I was trying to sing something else in my head.

But when my friend posted it with "Finally, a good Katy Perry song" above the link I couldn't help it--I though Really? I wanna see this!

The music is so incredibly catchy--and I will be the first to tell you it's the type of music I love to listen to when I workout. I even liked the lyrics...but the problem was the music video. Why did she have to ruin that song for me?

The music video had some major problems:

1. Under absolutely no circumstances is it ok to have two boys kiss each other in a music video. I could stop here and not say any more about it--it was that disturbing.
2. The heavy-set girl who finds freedom enough to jump in the pool was an encouraging theme about confidence--but her taking off her clothes and only having bra and underwear on was a little much. *and anyone who shops at Walmart knows what kind of underwear she was wearing--ergo too much info for a video*
3. can I re-mention #1?!

The thing is, after watching this I looked up some of her other things and found that this is a common theme in her videos.....ick.


Here were some elements I did like:
1. The little boy with cancer was such a unique and heart-touching scene to have in the video. It should have been the main theme.
2. They showed a boy stopping his father from hitting his mother only once--what a great theme that would have been to carry through! I felt like it was dropped much too quickly.
3. The music and lyrics make me want to go run on the treadmill.
4. the scenery they used was really great for a city scene
5. Katy was fully clothed!...believe me, this is improvement from some of her other things...

So here's my take on this issue:

Katy Perry is a gorgeous woman with a strong voice. Her lyrics for "Firework" were catchy and her music was equally so. But as far as the video goes, I definitely didn't like it. So what do we do?
Moms: if you have control over what your daughters listen to, I don't recommend this artist. I can think of SO many other artists to check out that are totally safe:
*ZOEgirl
*Point of Grace
*Superchick
*RelientK
*Group 1 Crew
*FFH
*Colbie Caillet (you might preview depending on family preferences)
*Taylor Swift (dependent on family preferences)

Youth/College kids:
We have the freedom to listen to any kind of music that we want. Believe me, I have quite a mix on my computer right now that I need to listen to and weed out. But what we fill our minds with is often how we walk daily. We are free to listen to it! But is that really the responsible thing to do? Her song is catchy and I wanted to get it for workouts--but knowing what was in the music video will always replay in my mind when I hear it, and that's not something I need to dwell on. So, I won't be getting the song.....

I'm not going to bash Katy--that doesn't do anything and I know many who have said all I could say about her. So I'll leave that to someone else. She needs Jesus just like I do--and she can put out there whatever she wants. But I won't condone it, I won't endorse it, and I just won't buy this song and we will both be happy.

That's my take.

Because He lives,
Sarah