Hey girls! Been double-crossed by a lowdown, dirty, cheatin' man? Wipe away those tears honey and sign-up to Uncle Sam. The Military Industrial Complex Needs YOU!
With all the subtlety of The Simpsons', 'Yvan Eht Nioj (Join The Navy)' Katy Perry's new video for her single 'Part of Me' is a flagrant and disturbing exercise in military propaganda, explicitly targeting young women.
After seeing her boyfriend locking lips with another lady, a distraught Perry catches a glimpse of an army recruitment sign quoting, "All women are created equal. Then some become marines."
Then, female pride duly swallowed: cuts hair, binds-up boobs, surrenders BlackBerry for boots, pow-pows some rifles, shimmies along assault courses and dances 'neath a giant star spangled banner whilst singing, "This is the part of me that you're never gonna ever take away from me."
Perry daubs on warpaint whilst using her cosmetic compact: oh-so cleverly implying signing-up is the urbane lifestyle choice for the cosmopolitan lady. The message is very clear: those fella's may do you wrong but the army is your lover and the State is your friend.
Feminist writer Naomi Wolf recently called for a KP boycott, writing on her Facebook, "It [Perry's video] is truly shameful... I would suggest a boycott of this singer whom I really liked - if you are as offended as this glorification of violence as I am." Partly correct, she forgets to add, 'falsification of reality'.
Heroic themes of camaraderie and valour + underpinning emotive heartbreak narrative = thoroughly romanticised, sanitised and deceptive presentation of true military life.
Perry herself claims, "This is one of the most aggressive videos I have ever done. It is an affirmation of strength, so I wanted to go the strongest route I could." Whilst it could appear 'pro-women' on the surface with all its gung-ho, who-needs-a-man? attitude, the video's twisted conceit of signing-up as a man-hating expression of revenge is sickeningly irresponsible given the irony that so many women in the military become a 'camp slave' to their male comrades.
Yes, behind the glossy, faux-empowering veneer of Perry's video, lies a dirty truth about the reality service women face. Last year 3,158 sexual crimes were reported within the US military, of those cases only 529 reached the courtroom. They're more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed on enemy lines. Female toilets even feature signs instructing them not to go alone at night. One in three service women are raped. Yes, one in three.
Marines are programmed into becoming killing, dehumanized, empathy-free automatons, is it any wonder many commit these wicked, conscience-free acts?
Sexual abuse aside, let's not forget the deadly vaccines, the toxic, life-reducing depleted uranium weaponry, no death benefits if killed - sure, US military life really is a bundle of loyal comradeship and effusive high-fivin' teamwork, right? Contrary to what most join-up for, marines do not fight to defend country, they end up working for the UN, NATO and globalist corporations in imperial resource-grabbing wars - sadly, nothing to do with honourably serving ones nation.
KP's Army porn and the other recent blatant war ad psyop, Kony 2012, suggest the Military Industrial Complex are getting pretty trigger-happy with troop recruitment and foreign occupation. As economies implode and overseas military interventions are on the increase, these propaganda pieces serve as timely commercials for an army (literally) of fresh new, brainwash-able recruits. Whilst the ongoing message in Western mainstream media is that Syria, Iran and Uganda are bad guys, we're all being prepped that intervention is essential.
Militarisation themes in music videos are nothing new - more troublingly - within those of female pop singers. For her Hard video, Rihanna turned drill sergeant in a barren, nameless Middle Eastern province and Beyonce's battle against riot troops in her Run The World (Girls) video is set against a dystopic war-torn backdrop. Police state programming is alive and well.
As Edward Bernays, the godfather of public relations and US's chief psychological warfare expert wrote in his prophetic 1928 book, Propaganda, "In almost every act of our lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons [...] who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world."