The hubbub over Katy Perry’s cleavage and thinly veiled references to Elmo’s growing and waning erection strike me as, well, ridiculous. Sesame Street knew what it was doing when it booked a slut. Why, then, act shocked when it got one?
Let’s start with the basics. For instance, if you're wondering whether Katy Perry is a slut, ask what your mom would think. Perry sports revealing clothes, straps whipped cream-topped cupcakes to her breasts (with red cherry nipples – subtle), and gazes provocatively from a sea of cotton candy on her latest album cover, naked. Her August 2010 album title, Teenage Dream, implies nocturnal emissions, and in her summer hit single "California Gurls" [sic] she sings: "California gurls [sic] they’re unforgettable/ Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top/...We’ll melt your popsicle." Aside from the obvious question (Why would a children’s educational show want to feature a singer who can’t even spell?) I think we can all agree: this is no folk art.
Now for Snoop Dogg. Where does he come in? For those who don’t know, Snoop Dogg co-wrote and performed on Perry’s summer hit "California Gurls." "Sippin’ on gin and juice," in fact, is a direct quote from Snoop’s famous, and famously misogynistic, 1993 album Doggystyle, which may have done more to dismantle 70s feminism than anything else that decade. But back to the point. Snoop Dogg (born Cordozar Calvin Broadus), is what most traditional fathers would consider a reprehensible character. Proponent of daily weed smoking and "gansta" living, in and out of jail, referring to women as "bitches" and "hos" in near ridiculous quantity, Snoop made a career of promoting casual sex acts and cartoon images of women being penetrated "doggie style." As 90s women everywhere did bong rips to impress their male friends in college (just a few years past adolescence, when they were raised on feminist sit-coms like Growing Pains and Who’s the Boss?) Snoop schooled them in blow jobs: "It don’t matter/ Just don’t bite it."
Ah hem. So Sesame Street hired Katy Perry, an adult entertainer whose suggestive co-written hit smashed the charts this summer, to sing on their children’s show. They ordered a slut, and they got one. But why?
Perhaps the American Slut Culture, sensing a stagnation in sales due to a near-saturated preadolescent market, decided to hightail it for an even younger audience. Think about it: marketing sluts to young girls isn’t new: there’s precedent. Under Mom’s watchful gaze, fathers began jerking off to their prepubescent daughters’ "pop singer" posters in 2000, when Brittney Spears and Christina Aguilera adorned their walls. The twistedness of Daddy kissing daughter goodnight near her Catholic schoolgirl plaid thrown on a chair – and hiked up good and tight on Brittney above the bed – increased only when Oprah Winfrey featured Spears on her show in a bathing suit and live snake boa to the hysterical adoration of her frumpy middle-aged housewife fans. Not exactly self-preservation on your part, ladies.
But have women learned? I’d like to think it wasn’t "parents" who roared over Katy Perry’s Sesame Street slut song. It was mothers. Exhausted by a culture that competes with them at every turn – 20 year-old sluts making sexy at every checkout aisle, billboard sign, magazine rack, TV commercial, and click of the mouse – mothers may have finally joined hands to say "Enough." Sesame Street should be a safe zone: husband Bob will not get hard, again, to someone who’s not them – at least not while babysitting while they run errands on Saturday afternoons.
In other words, Snoop, women have issued a warning: It does matter, because they can bite it.