"I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry

When a co-worker showed me this video on youtube, I was confused. Had I missed an episode of Gossip Girl? Was someone trying to sell me mascara? But as a girl in a short pleated party dress stroked a kitten from the comfort of her pink satin bedspread, I figured it out: someone had recycled Jill Sobule's song, put some high heels and lipstick on it, and was repackaging it for the Miley Cyrus crowd. Katy assures all the homophobes out there that she didn't plan to kiss this girl, and that she was running on liquid courage when she did the deed. She muses, "I hope my boyfriend don't mind it." Well, Kit, you're gyrating in black lingere in a sea of women -- I'm guessing your man's A-OK. But, lest he feel that his machismo's been undermined, the song is peppered with all sorts of non-threatening ways of saying "I'M NOT A DYKE":
"Don't mean I'm in love" = "I'm not about to start loading the U-HAUL."
"You're my experimental game" = "You don't matter! Honey, did you get that on the digicam? Be sure to tag it on facebook."

"I don't even know your name; it doesn't matter." = "I don't care who you are; I'm not planning on tagging you in this photo."

"It's not what good girls do." = "I know you're bummed I'll never try anal, but look! I'm still so naughty!"
"Ain't no big deal, it's innocent." = "I didn't see any vag."
Strangely, in this video, no girl ever kisses another girl. And further, in the ultimate scene, to prove to us that she's not planning on buying Birks and heading to Provincetown, video-Katy wakes up next to her sleeping boyfriend. Phew, it was just a dream! She DREAM-kissed a girl. She can still go to heaven after all.

RATING: 9%

"I Kissed a Girl" by Jill Sobule

I've always loved this song, and my love only increased after watching the adoreably stylized, primary-color-drizzled video. The song is funny because the speaker (as a poet would say) is visited by her female neighbor and rags on her man, and then the speaker rags on her man, and then they kiss. The video depicts the women doing all sorts of cliche, female-type things, such as bearing baked goods and oohing over tupperware, but the extreme cartoonish quality of the video makes these Donna Reed-ish women seem subversive, not steretypical. Jill Sobule also appears in a plain black outfit with shorts, strumming away at her guitar like "FUCK YOU, I kissed a girl, what?" When video-Jill's hubby (played by epitome of pretty testosterone bucket Fabio) comes home, video-Jill is in bed in her leopard nightie and her neighbor peeks out from under the dust ruffle. It's more adoreable than salacious, even as it does imply that maybe something more than kissing was happening in the cardboard cutout cul-de-sac. Strangely, in this video, no girl ever kisses another girl, but as Fabio flips burgers, Jill and Jenny play footsie. The dudes are totally unaware of anything shady going on around them. And as Jill states, her kissing a girl "won't change the world," but she very well "may do it again" (even though Fabio has knocked her up). Now that's dedication.

RATING: 74%