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Katy Perry has insisted a controversial scene in her 'Woman's World' music video is supposed to be "slapstick" and "sarcastic".
The 39-year-old singer returned to music with her new track earlier this week, but has faced criticism for the sexualised nature of the video, notably a moment where she and her dancers perform sexy choreography on a construction site before she is "smashed" by an anvil and returns in a new costume.
In a behind-the-scenes video shared to Instagram, Perry said of the moment: 'We’re kind of just having fun, being a bit sarcastic with it. It’s very slapstick and very on the nose.
'With this set it’s like, "Oooh, we’re not about the male gaze, but we really are about the male gaze." And we’re really overplaying it and on the nose.'
The former American Idol judge explained the anvil moment was meant as a "reset" to help her embrace the "idea of feminine divine".
Katy Perry has insisted a controversial scene in her 'Woman's World' music video is supposed to be "slapstick" and "sarcastic"
She has faced criticism for the sexualised nature of the video, notably a moment where she and her dancers perform sexy choreography on a construction site
She added: 'We wanted to open this video making it look like a super high-gloss pop star video.'
Woman's World is the first single from Perry's upcoming album 143, which will be released on 20 September.
The title is a code for I love you which was often used in messages sent on pagers during the 1990s.
Katy said in a statement: 'I set out to create a bold, exuberant, celebratory dance-pop album with the symbolic 143 numerical expression of love as a throughline message.'
It will mark the star's first album since 2020's Smile, which did not replicate the success of her previous records.
The Firework singer previously told how the album will be "pure joy and fun".
She told Access Hollywood: 'I just have yet to make a record from a place of feeling really happy and whole and full of love.
'Sometimes artists are like, "Oh, that’s boring, you want to make music from kind of like a tougher place," but actually it’s very bright and joyful, like pure joy and fun and playful and celebratory and a party.'
The former American Idol judge explained the anvil moment was meant as a "reset" to help her embrace the "idea of feminine divine"
Woman's World is the first single from Perry's upcoming album 143, which will be released on 20 September
Shortly after its release on Friday, Woman's World was panned by the critics as a 'monumental catastrophe' that sounds like a 'reheated' Lady Gaga.
It received a particularly harsh review from Pitchfork, which suggested it sounded like Perry had learned about feminism from a basic Google search.
'Defying all sense of taste, the pop singer’s comeback single is too dispiriting to even approach camp. It’s abysmal,' wrote the outlet's Shaad D’Souza.
Perry faced criticism for allegedly modeling her song after Lady Gaga's 2020 hit Stupid Love, resulting in what some called a lackluster imitation.
Additionally, she was heavily criticized for collaborating on Woman's World with Dr. Luke, the music producer accused of sexual assault by Kesha in a lawsuit that was later dismissed. Dr. Luke has consistently denied the allegations.
(L-R) Producer Dr. Luke, singer Katy Perry and producer Cirkut at the 56th GRAMMY Awards ijn 2014. Perry has been condemned for working with Luke on her new single
The Pitchfork review noted that her choice to work with Dr. Luke on a feminist anthem was 'sincerely twisted, if unsurprising.'
The song also received a scathing one-star review from The Guardian, which described the song as 'reheated Gaga' and accused it of blatantly borrowing from Chappell Roan's single Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl.
'Woman’s World sounds like it was designed by a committee in a boardroom at Capitol Records whose sole objective was a sync on RuPaul's Drag Race and generating comments of "you ate" from white gays living in West Hollywood,' wrote Alim Kheraj in a scalding review for Dazed.
With 'lyrics that genuinely felt AI generated,' the song 'falls as flat as the bottom of the anvil that crushes Perry halfway through the music video,' according to Mary Siroky's review for Consequence Of Sound.
