Now don’t get us wrong. We’re not shocked by Perry’s pretend gayness. You only have to go to any branch of Brannigans on a Friday or Saturday night to see truck loads of girls lezzing up to try and get some spotty guy a little hot under the collar. What really upsets us is that it got us thinking about the number of actual lesbians in mainstream pop. We had a quick think and we can’t think of any. OK, so you’ve got your serious singer-songwriters like KD Lang, there was that Alex Parks lady from Fame Academy and there’s the bi-curious Peaches and Madonna (though we still can’t work out if Madge’s lesbian dalliances were just for publicity). Don’t even get us started on t.A.T.u. Other than that, to our knowledge, there are none. Please correct us if we’re wrong.
It seems that it’s OK for women to play the gay card in pop as long as they don’t actually mean it. This strikes us as strange. There are countless male gay pop stars, so why are ladies who like ladies not allowed to (a) produce pop or (b) - and we think this is the most likely - be open about their sexuality and still have mainstream appeal.
One thing’s for sure, Katy Perry’s faux lesbianism won’t be rocking the foundations of the straight-bias in pop. Hopefully when the first out and proud female pop star comes along, and we’re sure she will, she’ll make up for all this publicity-grabbing pretending and cloak and dagger anti-lesbian bullshit.
