Who Would You Like to Please? or, Why "I Kissed a Girl" Is Not Queer when "I Kissed a Boy" Is

[emmuzka]

So, in case someone in my friendslist don't know these songs already: "I Kissed a Girl" is a last summer's surprise (?) hit, sung by Katy Perry. The song rode in the wave of being "racy" and "noty". "I Kissed a Boy" is a cover of the same song with mostly re-written lyrics and performed entirely different way by a band Cobra Starship.

I claim that the Cobra Starship version is queer when the original was not. Why? Let me tell you.

First, here are the songs:

I Kissed a Girl:

I Kissed a Boy:

Then, lyrics:

I Kissed a Girl

This was never the way I planned
Not my intention
I got so brave, drink in hand
Lost my discretion
It's not what, I'm used to
Just wanna try you on
I'm curious for you
Caught my attention

Chorus:
I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry chap stick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don't mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don't mean I'm in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it
I liked it

No, I don't even know your name
It doesn't matter,
You're my experimental game
Just human nature,
It's not what,
Good girls do
Not how they should behave
My head gets so confused
Hard to obey

(Chorus)

Us girls we are so magical
Soft skin, red lips, so kissable
Hard to resist so touchable
Too good to deny it
Ain't no big deal, it's innocent

(Chorus)

I Kissed a Boy (these are not official lyrics but what I heard from the mix tape)

Yo check it out, I've got a plan
Here's my intention:
The frat boys in the club are lame
Let's start an altercation
It's just what I'm used to,
Just want to fuck shit up
I got my whole damn crew
C'mon, whatcha gonna do?

Chorus:
I kissed a boy and they liked it
Got all the honeys in the club excited
I kissed a boy just to start shit
Homeboy was not about it
I know it's wrong
But I don't mind
I'm gonna start shit tonight
I kissed a boy just to start shit
Bitches loved it

Now you don't even know my name
It doesn't matter.
Don't even front, you got no game
you're just a sucker
So what now?
I clowned you.
And I'm stealing your girl too.
She wants a secure dude
And that's just not you

(chorus)

Me and my bros that's how we roll
you never know how far we'll go
I'll grab some chump that I don't know
And plant one right on him.
You're only here for our amusement

(chorus)


I Kissed a Girl offers shamelessly a fantasy for a male listener: Pseudo-lesbian girl-kissing. This is servicing the male gaze, which puts women in a object position. The lyrics tell that the girl is drunk and doesn't really know what she is doing. Perry also sings about just "wanting to try it out" and the lyrics happily skip over the attention-whore aspect of the story. Maybe this is because the attention-whore-thing would be a little too close to the truth; Who can deny that this song came a summer hit, the attention grabber, just because of of the "noty" lyrics and the strategy of marketing Perry as kinda-bisexual-but-really-not? It's certainly not because Perry's singing, in my opinion she sounds like dogs barking.

So, I kissed a Girl is not queer. It is meant for the general audience and doesn't really offer anything unsafe of contradicting to the society. It's as edgy as Avril Lavinge.

Then what about I Kissed a Boy? What is interesting is that they just didn't settle for changing a few lyrics and pronouns, but almost the entire lyrics, this changing the story of the song altogether. The "Boy" isn't just accidentally drunk, providing eye-candy unintentionally; He knowingly plans to kiss boys to "start shit". He isn't a frail thing that hopes that his girlfriend wouldn't mind; He knows that the "honeys will get exited". When Perry offers amusement, the Boy uses others as his amusement. The singer Gabe Saporta truly sleazes it up, but still keeping the song tremendously fun.

I Kissed a Boy is queer because the lyrics tell about using same-sex kissing as a power vehicle. It was released in a mix tape for fans, so the pretext for the potential listeners is a bit queer in the first place. They knew that the internet honeys would loose their shit with this song. And they have.

Comments

[sua-lay.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.

Can you believe I haven't heard this before? Considering the fact I'm an old coot, you probably can...

Okay, so the girl version made me want to tear out my hair. Lipstick lesbianism at its worst, hee let's fool around and *giggle* am not really into that... Yeah. Also, WTF is it with the notion that kissing a girl isn't cheating? Oh, yeah, I remember. Lesbianism is a phase that ends when you find the right man, just like girl kissing is eye candy for guys... Not.

I was so annoyed by the kissing a boy thing as well, I can't really say objectively if I found it queer or not. It kinda sounded like 'I kissed intentionally someone with a fuck you attitude and stole his girl', when the physical aspect of kissing doesn't really sound queer but like an equivalent of a punch. Like a gauntlet thrown down in a macho society.

:D Whaaatever.

Anyway, I'm always amused by the whole This is servicing the male gaze, which puts women in a object position.. What would girls watching QAF or Brokeback or writing slash be about? Is gay friendly stuff servicing female gaze, putting men in a object position, or is this a stupid question because women are weak and meaningless and all sort of catering is always for the male audience?

Just wondering. :) Damn you for making me think. Now my head hurts.

*rushes off to read more gay porny stuff*

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

*digs up the media studies students' tin hat*

Well, the "male caze" concept is about feminist media studies, so... The male gaze was invented in a time when the supposed audience was so male that there was no room for female angle. The females in the movies were the subjects of desire of men, being either the main characters loved one or the evil devil woman. This still stands, partly; Just think about the ratio of male and female main characters in Hollywood movies?

anyway, with this kind of feminist movie analysis, for some reason there was also an idea that because the movies were made for male gaze, the women audience had no other option than identifying to the female. Yeah, I know.

So, yadda yadda, I think that the few gay movies and series' can't really compete with 99.9% of the heteronormative shit that is foremostly catered to men. Why has the fan service to females to be about gays, anyway? And you can't sum slash with official production, because user generated content is essentially against or beyond the more generalized, accepted and commersialized official production. Slash shows what we want, but "Desperate Houseviwes" is what we get.

[sua-lay.livejournal.com]

*sigh* It's still amazing how this can still be so strongly rooted in the official business (note how I mention no country or Holly... er.. town here). We have Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley and still they're more an exception than a rule, making it about men and their desires.

Okay, so I can agree that most of the movies 'made for women' are usually in the category of romantic comedies or Desperate Housewives, which usually pisses me off, since I quite honestly dislike both. In that sense, demographics suck, like racial profiling; then again most people are idiots, so why the hell complain... :D

I meant that if all the drooling after women is always objectifying them, isn't the thing we do to men the same? And I can't really believe such high percentage being foremostly catered to men; I think they target the audiences a bit more widely these days. *cough* Women are traditionally the audience of the Sex and the City and Friends -kinds of shows, (not to mention all the soaps...) but I doubt they aim hospital dramas to men per se.

Then again, what do I know? No tin hat here. :)

[rosabel.livejournal.com]

Ugh, when we were bored at my parents' place, we watched Voice and this song was on all the time. It pissed me off so much, exactly for the reasons you state! It's no more than titillation for the hetero male audience. My hubby was like, "Is this a lesbian song?" and I went "Blech, I wish it was!" I mean, she even sings "I hope my boyfriend won't mind it", meaning that although she has all it takes to be the pseudo-lesbian kisser who gets boys wolf whistling at her at parties, she'll still come home to a good old hetero relationship...

On the Boy-version of the song, there definitely is a more "honest" bisexual aspect going on than in the Perry version. Maybe I interpret this only through the fact that men just aren't as experimental as women when it comes to sexuality, and the thought of having homosexual relations (themselves) really grosses some men out, no matter how they are for gay rights. Compare this to a lot of straight women in studies who say that they don't find it hard to imagine to have sexual relationships with other women, mostly because women friends are already fairly intimate, hugging and holding hands, even kissing. That would not fly with friends among men. So, when I see a guy saying that he just wants to start shit by kissing a boy, I'm thinking that it has to be a guy who is very comfortable with his own sexuality and does not indeed mind kissing another guy.

I mean, how many times have girls kissed or raunchily danced with each other just to get the guys excited, and how many times have you seen guys do the same...

Or maybe I'm reading too much into it! Thanks for the original -- I did not know know that the Perry song was a cover.

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

The perry song was the original and the Boy-kissing version is the cover ;)

Anyway, I have heard that in some EME-teenie circles (in USA) the craze is for the girls to get the emo boys to kiss each other for the girls' kicks. Well, this is the time where guys can be as big MySpace camera whores as girls if they want to... Definitely more interesting than spin the bottle, yes?

[pikku-gen.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I'm starting to believe that the world is slowly balancing towards true equality of sexes*. Slowly, but surely. =)

*Male, female, queer... you name it.

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wish!

But by that time, we will be dirty old women, anyway. I'm already feeling strange with my current singer obsession Patrick Stump being seven years younger than me ;)

[rosabel.livejournal.com]

Oh poop -- sign me up for a reading comprehension class! :D

Haha, that's pretty awesome. I have not heard of that, but in some way I think it's cool. If the playing field is leveled, then why not!

[rosabel.livejournal.com]

After all the serious talk about the song...

I have never heard of this band before, mainly because I live under a rock, but I have to say that that singer is hot. Voice and all. The cover seems to fit their style, whether it was written as a statement or "just to start shit" :)

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

Oh, you will love Gabe and Cobra Starship. Gabe is tall, and crazy, and he is proud of his heritage and likes to speak spanish, and the band wore 80's inspired, neon-accessorized clothes before it was trendy. I Kissed a Boy is just his style. For a great and easy into to Cobra Starship, check their old single "guilty Pleasure". It has two videos, of which the first one, with the budged of like, ten dollars, is better :)

[rosabel.livejournal.com]

Haha, you were so right... I've been watching their videos for the past half an hour! I really liked the song Bring It! as well. I'm totally a sucker for this new movement (is it new if it is about 3 years old?) where rock and dance music merge. These songs are so danceable it's ridiculous! Makes me want to go out dancing...

Thanks for the original post for its throught-provoking content and getting me turned onto new music :)

[jae-w.livejournal.com]

While I think that the place that I Kissed A Boy is coming from is more interesting politically than the other song, I don't quite follow how it's queer because it talks about using same-sex kissing as a power vehicle. I'm queer, and I don't kiss girls as a power vehicle. I kiss them because I want to. In both songs, I think that missing piece is something they have in common -- neither narrator is kissing someone of the same sex because of desire or an attraction, but because of another motive -- attention-getting/shock value, whether to get what they consider positive attention (I Kissed A Girl) or negative but still desired attention (I Kissed A Boy). In fact, if you take the lyrics of I Kissed A Girl at face value, you can read them to mean that the narrator at least has curiosity or the beginnings of desire for another woman, even if it's not her main motivation. I think it's interesting that that part of the song, the idea of curiosity or nascent desire for someone of the same sex, did not carry over at all into I Kissed a Boy. And in both songs, the narrator is careful to assure listeners of their return to heterosexuality -- Katy worries about her boyfriend minding it, and Gabe tells us he's going to steal someone's girl.

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

In the narrow sense the I Kissed a Girls story *could* be a story of a some kind of just-a-wakening sexual tendencies, with the singer's greatest confession to actually liking what she was trying on. Still, the presentation makes it more to the area of lipstick-lesbianism-oh-how-cute.

In the Boy song Gabe doesn't actually even say liking the kissing, so that's not queer as gay, but queer in a sense of womens' studies-queer, which is more about the escape from the heteronormative dictomy using carnevalistic methods. The Girl song doesn't disturb the balance of the great hetero land, when the listener is the watcher, but the Boy song does, if only a little; The singer threatened the great hetero happines with his threat of somebody coming over and kissing *you*, not just providing eye-candy for you.

[jae-w.livejournal.com]

I guess for me, the fact that the Boy song doesn't even nod toward the possibility of desire for another boy, problematizes it even in the womens' studies-queer-way (and part of my issue here is that philosophically I have always had an issue with any definition of queer that doesn't include desire in some way). The Boy song makes it clear that the kiss is, in its own way, a threat or an attack -- it's to start shit, to start an altercation, the man who's kissed is a chump, and afterwards the other man is clowned, defeated. There's nothing really new about that dynamic -- male same-sex activity as a way of unmanning someone weaker; it's been used throughout history as a way for a man to humiliate and punish men who are weaker or with less power, because it figuratively turns the man into a "woman", someone capable of being penetrated, and actually is a strategy that serves to reinforce the heteronorm. Had the Boy song included even some notion that the kiss was motivated by desire -- if the singer had even thought about liking it -- I think it would go a lot further toward being truly queer.

All of this is not to say I don't like the song (I feel like I'm getting dangerously close in that last paragraph to saying it's a song about rape, which, I do not think it is! I feel the need to say that strongly!!), because I do like it. I think it actually takes the idea in the Girl song and executes it in a much wittier, more fun way. I was interested to see you lay out your thesis in this way, because I'd seen many people referring to the song as queer or gay without expanding on it, and had wondered b/c I didn't see it that way, and I thought your post and then your response to my comment was a very cogent and interesting argument, even if I don't agree :)

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

It's a damn shame that the lyrics are "I kissed a boy and they liked it" rather than "I liked it", as what I actually heard when I listened the song the first times. It's actually left to the listener to decided on which one it is, especially people that have heard the original one a million time will probably hear the lyric as "I liked it".

I have to admit that my take on that the Boy song is queer is mixed a bit with a wishful thinking. My interpretetion is that the song is queer because I want it to be? Maybe.

With the Boy song, my take was that the song was more threatening since it kinda threatened to come and kiss the listener out of the blue (and make the kissed one the one that would question his sexuality). But! Your take is so much intriguing! Thanks for bringing up the reference to the history of male dominance through sexual threat against other male. That's really interesting!

[jae-w.livejournal.com]

Actually! Last night as I was going to bed I actually thought about a reading that would make this song more queer to me. (I know I'm beating the hell out of this song that Gabe probably wrote in 18 minutes, but this topic is interesting to me, the whole idea of stage gay and these songs, etc.) I don't think the kiss itself is queer, for my reasons up above, but I think it's possible to read the song so that the unintended (not unheard of but not the specific stated intent of this kiss) reaction by the honeys in the club, and more specifically Gabe's embrace and celebration of that, does queer it. Gabe may kiss the boy not in a queer way but to start shit, but I think it's pretty clear if only from context that the honeys get excited not because of the shit-stirring but because of the performance of same sex desire. In a way, their gaze imposes homosexuality, or at least homosexual desire on Gabe, and by not fighting against it or insulting it but by embracing it, both the fact that the honeys have that power of imposition and the fact that the desire is homosexual, I think that could be read as queering the situation, if not the kiss, for me. I actually like this reading, which I admit has an aspect of wishful thinking for me as well, because the power to queer the situation resides in the women who are watching.

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

Yep, the honeys in the song have the freedom to think of whatever they like, and they *choose* to enjoy the gay show (where it doesn't matter if the boys kissing are gays or not). Still, I don't know if the honeys are invited to watch in the purpose of them taking part in the act of humiliating the kissed boys, or if they are invited to use their female gaze over the situation and enjoy the game without participation.

Ha, we are analyzing this to death, but so what. It's not the original content provider who has the final word on what things mean, it's the audience. And our discussion is totally already meta-fandom worth :)

[mitzi007.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on I Kissed a Girl but I'm not necessarily thrilled about I Kissed a Boy either.

The Problem I have with I Kissed a Boy is that it uses male bisexuality as a threat. It plays straight into the straight men's fear that gay people come and force themselves on them. I would have liked some notion that the frat boys perhaps weren't completely averse to being kissed after all.

On the other hand there is something subversive about that song. I Kissed a Girl is a very safe song because men are supposed to like lesbians (or "lesbians") and drunken girls experimenting is often even applauded while men are not supposed to kiss each other and definitely for the attention and women aren't supposed to enjoy it. Also it brings to the foreground male bisexuality which is usually pretty ignored in both media and the real life.

So I Kissed a Boy challenges the status quo while I Kissed a Girl maintains it. I like that it challenges the cultural expectations though I don't necessarily agree with the method it uses.

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

I can see why people would have problems with the lyrics of "Boy". The yare just different problems than in "girl". But as I see it, the "Boy" lyrics allow different interpretations; the lyrics can been sen as fun&games, or, as you see it, a questionable game of using bisexuality as a threat. IT totally allow the listener to think that the boy in the story is an ashole.

On the issue on the fratboys liking it or not, well. In the lyrics it says that "Homeboy was not about it", meaning that the guy wasn't into it (which could mean that 1) he wans't gay, 2) he wasn't into kissing guys, or 3) the kissed guy didn't like that particular kiss..).

but the verse "I kissed a boy and they liked it" actually leaves open who the "they" are. The singers friends tht he brought along? the girl wathing the entertainment? Or, the boys he kissed?

[lumiyu.livejournal.com]

Good points from everyone.

Primarily I like boy version better because musically it's sooo much closer to my tastes. The girl version I wouldn't have even noticed without this thing (And, in fact, haven't. What, a summer hit? Never heard it before.) Even if it does have the nice drumming stuff on the background in the beginning but then it goes into the whole popdiscowhatever beat. Meh.

Like I said already, the Cobra song has lovely gritty sound to it, and IMO it just might be my fav Cobra song now. (but then, I am not Cobra fan :< )

Lyrically then. Yeah, agreed with the other commenters. However, who listens to lyrics (or understands them right?). I couldn't understand the "I start shit" until I read the lyrics ^^. The most notable part of the songs are "I kissed a girl/boy" and the fact it's sung by samesex. (Who notices when Michael Stipe sings about manlove? no one :< ). Subtext and lyrical interpretions aside, I think it's quite awesome that a song where a girl is saying she kissed a girl become a hit, and another song with male equivelant is getting out there too. The fact that these things are said aloud, in popular media, makes it more okay and accepted generally (you know, like, I heard a song on radio where girl kissed a girl, and it's no big deal), and we can hope there will be more and more daring and queer songs coming out.

Sorry for the incoherentness.

[dlasta.livejournal.com]

I don't think either one of the songs is really 'queer'. Both are catchy but 'I kissed a girl' has such teenie attention whore lyrics I can't enjoy the beat. NOt to say anything about that asinine fantasy video and the whole 'girls are soft and pretty and smell nice and when they have sex it's all candlelight and sexy underwear and everybody looks artistic when having an orgasm'.
I would have loved to hear what a singer with little more guts would have made of this. (Pink?)

(Tho, I do like the part with 'and I liked it' more than what's in the boy-version.)

Other than that, x2 on what other people said.:D

[lumiyu.livejournal.com]

I would be very curious to hear Pink's version of the song :o

[dlasta.livejournal.com]

Imagine the controversy, admittedly bisexual(-ish?) woman singing about kissing girls?! Oh noes!

I'd have paid real money for Pink's song.:D

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have, I can't just wrap my head around the idea of Pink singing this...

And I think it is weird that things that people sing are actually somehow taken as statements. Not all songs come from the soul, ha. Because of this, the singest might actually get a stamp i ntheir foreheads, making singing songs like these actually a threat to their career. Which is shitty. It's like, no one can sing one song about trying drugs or something, because then he woudl be a "drug user" for the rest of his career. :(

[dlasta.livejournal.com]

Not the exactly same song but a version of it. Like The Cobra Starship did but with better message. The kind that isn't sexual harassment or coy posing but is still about kissing a person of same sex and liking it.

Songs are statements of sorts. The singer is selling (performing) a feeling or a moment and if the performer doesn't mesh with the music s/he is making it's fake and we don't buy it. Drapes have to match the carpet, in a way. :)

The rub is in the way some genres are so strongly made to 'fit all' that any forays into reality are met with resistance.
One can sing about the hard subjects like rape, murder, drugs and whatever but when the genre is about image it's going to have to be from someone else's pov or just not pop music.

Why would anyone sing about trying drugs if they hadn't done so?

(Sorry if this is messy. Too little sleep and I have no idea what language i'm writing in.:)

[sua-lay.livejournal.com]

*giggles* Though, Pink would never have uttered all these lyrics... So they'd have to rewrite it again...

[dlasta.livejournal.com]

That's what I meant.
If Pink made a song about kissing a girl it would be about realizing your sexuality and being all 'Hey, not straight apparently. All righty then. Must kiss more girls!'
There's be no boyfriends and no moronic descriptions of exaggerated femininity.

...Oh why couldn't she have made this song? I *really* liked the beat but my feminist side won't allow me to fully enjoy it.

[sua-lay.livejournal.com]

I *know*!

Oh and while bed shopping with Tvilly yesterday, we were testing the beds (and that really sounded more lewd than it was...) and I suddenly burst into laughter as I realized they were playing this damn song on the radio. Had never paid any attention to it before...

And! I'd even like this song to be about... the real kinda girl power. Went out to party, got a bit drunk, kissed some boys, kissed some girls, liked it all, am still in the party -mode and haven't decided on how to spend the night. That would be empowering and queer and fucking hot as well.

[dlasta.livejournal.com]

Word!
And funny how you can think up a better plot for the song in three minutes than the one they went with. No yay.

I'm not even gay and this poser-queer crap makes me so mad. Grr.