How Pop Video's Reflect One's Personal Life - Katy Perry

How Katy Perry's Pop Video reinforces her brand identity and reflects her personal life?

Before I begin this post I would like to touch upon what Goodwin stated. He said that "pop videos are used to reinforce brand image/identity". Katy Perry is a famous singer who was born and raised in California. She has released many singles that have been hugely successful due to her incredible voice but also for her unique style of Pop Videos. In this blog, I will examine her style and attempt to conclude her reasons behind these music videos. Katy Perry has a lot of music videos and her target audience is teenagers but in particular girls. She tries to show herself in her videos almost as an ideal big sister looking out and trying to inspire her younger teenage audience. This message is most evident in her music video 'Firework'. The video offers many people who are scared to show their true identity. For example in the video, there is a boy who is a homosexual but it scared to come out and show it due to the discrimination that homosexual that face in society. The idea of the video us to show a positive image to the audience that everyone is different and unique in their own way. A common thing in Katy Perry's videos is that she really goes all out in terms of expenses in her videos. Her videos are of very high budgets.


Before the song 'Firework' was released, Katy was seen in more of a sexual way rather than the ideal older sister as she is seen nowadays. This image of her being a desirable female is seen in one of her older songs which is called 'California Girls'. In this video Katy displays herself in a 'sexy' way, conveying herself as an asset that men desire. A few months after this video Katy found herself engaged to Russel Brand. They got married but the marriage was short lived. Brand stated that he didn't feel any sense of romance during the marriage and even went as far as saying that when they made love, he had to pretend she was someone else to enjoy himself. Consequently this led to their divorce and Katy's next song was arguably inspired from their divorce. The next song was called 'Wide Awake' almost emphasising that she has realised her mistake. In the song, Katy makes a lot of references to her disastrous marriage with Brand. She states "I was falling hard with an open heart" and "I'm not blind anymore". This emphasises that she acknowledges the mistake she made when she got married to Russel and she know is back to her old self. Not only does the song lyrics emphasise her despair but also the video aswell. In the last scene she is with a younger child who we presume to be one of her young fans that she inspires. In this scene, a rather dashing and handsome Prince Charming, who we assume is Russel Brand, arrives on a unicorn ready to take her into an enchanted place and live happily ever after. The old Katy would have been swooped off her feet and would have definitely got onto the unicorn, but the 'wide awake' Katy chooses her young fan emphatically over Prince Charming by giving him a punch to his face defeating him and he even had his fingers crossed as he approached Katy, symbolising that there is no real love between them. This clearly is a reference to her personal life and relationship with Russel but she is now saying to her fans that she is back to her old self.