The video starts off with a long shot of a man looking at an
art piece of Katy Perry with his back to the camera. The start of the video
allows the audience to note that the video is most likely going to be artistic
due to the reference to many pieces of art and pulp culture. As the director
zooms in more into the picture, the picture starts to show more colour. As camera
gets closer the audience can see the wig Katy Perry is wearing is similar to
one of Beyonce’s many wigs. From this the audience can foreshadow that the
video will make references to many well known celebrities. Pastiche/homage to
the 70’s fashion and colourful style is immediately noticed in the first scene
by looking at the large earring in Katy’s right ear while she doesn’t wear one
in the right ear which is bizarre to do in this day and time. Male dancers
dressed in grey suits with white shoes and red bow ties pays homage to Pee Wee
Herman, who served as inspiration for Joel’s video for “Water Fountain” by
tUnE-yArDs. The video pays homage to modern pop art through colourful pieces
that visually represent the lyrics of the song. For example when she sings “Playing
ping pong all night long, everything's all neon and hazy” the audience can see
a neon ping pong table in the middle of the screen with people dressed in neon
outfits with neon stars to represent that its night. Neon colours were popular
in the 70’s making the video more post modern. As the video goes on a mid shot
is used to shot Katy Perry Surrounded by Fake Chanel which illustrates that
many people who cannot afford Chanel buy fake channel ‘if you can’t have fake
Chanel’. Emphasising pastiche using an explosion of pop art, vintage fashion. What
was worn in the early days is now being called vintage, the video is made more
post modern by using a wide variety of vintage clothing. Ice cream truck and
high ponytail is like the ice cream truck used in the Iggy Azalea “Pu$$y”
video. The video takes even existing videos and pays homage to them through
making the post modern just by the use of the bright colours on the truck and
vintage clothing that is now back in fashion. The red, blue, and yellow squares
reference the De Stijl Dutch art movement from the early 1900’s, going back to
the point that the video references many pieces of art and pulp culture. use of
the openly gay NBA player Jason Collins illustrates that it’s ok to be gay
while Katy Perry sings “this is how we do” bringing forth the idea that being
gay is normal more now than it was years back.
Reference to world famous Italo Disco, Pizzarina di Bellesima while Katy
Perry wears everything from the Yves Saint Laurant Mondrian dress to a
pepperoni pizza swimsuit to green hair extensions. Connotating that anything
goes, people go with the flow and weird is part of our everyday life; people
are allowed to express themselves in more ways than ever. She cruises around in
a convertible with her hair teased out the way Fran Fine had in the hit TV
series The Nanny, wearing similar clothing and colours the character would
wear. This makes reference to an old TV show that people now wouldn’t have
heard of. This part of the video is more like ‘you had to have been there to understand’.
The video plays both references to topics relevant now and was relevant then. The
director zooms out of the shot where the audience can see Katy Perry getting
her nails done while sitting on a large hand. This mise-en-scene makes
reference to Miley Cyrus’ foam finger in 2013 at the VMAs. There’s
interetextual reference to Mariah Carey. This seen is merely a parody and mocks
the well known singer as the celebrity double in the long shot wears and
extremely tight dress that reveals her dress and her figure while she poses for
the camera trying to look ‘sexy’. Nicki Minaj’s iconic bright hair colour is
used on one of Katy Perry’s wigs while she sits on Lorde’s table-tennis. She makes
references to well known singers in one take. In the scene where Katy Perry is
on the floor singing Karaoke the audience can make link and the hair references
to FKA twigs who’s an old singer born in the later years. The video as a whole
is s sequel of sorts to both California Girls and Last Friday night which are
both well known party songs by Katy. The strutting ice cream treats are a reference
to the famous 1957 “Let’s Go Out To The Lobby” movie theatre snack promo. Intertextuality
to Last Friday Night. A close-up of the singer is used to reference Brooke
Candy who is Tumblr’s favourite rapper by the use of the hair style. Portrait of
singer Aretha Franklin. A prince charming reference is used when an image of a
shirtless man with a 10 on his face is shown where next a frog appears on the
screen. This in turn references to princess and the frog as she ends up kissing
a frog thinking it was her prince. This is shown by the putting on of the
glasses when the ‘hot’ male is on screen and when the glasses are on the male
turns out to be a mere frog. The twerking ice-cream makes renefrence to the
singer Miley Cyrus as she recently brough back the trend of terrible twerking
which in turn had a snowball effect leading to more twerking video on the net.
