For this final post, I actually decided to use two Katy Perry songs, comparing and contrasting them. The songs that I am going to use are “Ur So Gay” and “One of the Boys.” I feel that Perry was an adequate source to select gendered lyrics from because a lot of her songs either establish or transgress traditional sex roles in our current society. The first song is about a boy that the singer is dating. She loves him, despite the fact that he has some “gay” traits and behaviors. In the second song, the singer is describing how, even though she is a female, she acts, talks, and thinks like “one of the boys.” The following links will lead you to the each of the songs: http://www.justsomelyrics.com/1238541/Katy-Perry-Ur-So-Gay-Lyrics
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/k/katy_perry/one_of_the_boys.html
These two songs transgress traditional masculine and feminine roles, with “Ur So Gay” emphasizing non-traditional traits for a male to have (therefore he must be gay), and “One of the Boys” explaining traditional masculine traits, but associating them with a girl instead. From reading the lyrics to “Ur So Gay,” we are able to understand the lens that society looks through in order to analyze the sexual orientation of individuals. Stereotypically, there are significant behaviors, attitutes, and traits that supposedly represent homosexuality, and the subject of this song possesses many of them.
In “One of the Boys,” the singer describes herself as possessing masculine traits and behaviors; however, once the chorus begins, we realize that the singer does not want the person that she’s singing to to think of her as one of the boys. In his eyes, she wants to be seen as one of the girls; therefore, she begins molding herself into a “girly-girl” just to get the boy she wanted all along. But then, when she became “one of the girls” and the boy started looking at her like she always wanted him to, she said “You’re gonna have to take a number, it’s ok, maybe one day, but not until I get my diamond ring…” This shows us the lengths that the singer would go to in order to get a boy to like her; she used to be “one of the boys,” but she changed her self-image around so people would view her differently and see her as exploring a different path of “sex-role development.” (Gamble and Gamble, 2003, p. 39) Through this song, we are also able to discover the singer’s development of self-concept and gender identity, “the inner sense one has as male or female.” (Gamble and Gamble, 2003, p. 43) At first, she views herself as just one of the boys (male), but then her views start to evolve and actually switch genders when she realizes that she wants to be associated as one of the girls (female).
Perry, K. (2007). One of the Boys. One of the Boys: CD. Hollywood, CA: Capitol.
Perry, K. (2007). Ur So Gay. One of the Boys: CD. Hollywood, CA: Capitol.
Gamble, M. W. (2003). The Gender Communication Connection. Columbus: Pearson.
