Her costumes may be bold, but Katy Perry generally steers clear of the controversial performances that rivals Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga and Kesha welcome. While opening last night’s American Music Awards, however, Katy may have unintentionally stumbled into “offensive” territory by dressing as a Geisha while singing Unconditionally.
As soon as the screen went down in the beginning and Katy emerged wearing a Kotaku (which is actually a mix between a kimono and a Chinese cheongsam), people on social media began crying foul.
“What the hell, Katy Perry. What the hell, music industry. Is ‘do a racist performance to get press’ gonna be a thing now? please let’s not,” one person said on Twitter.
Another person commented, “Happened to flip to the AMA’s and Katy perry’s performance. Borderline racist radar is sounding off.”
Others said calling Katy’s performance racist was an overstatement… But it was somewhat offensive that she mixed up cultural elements.
“This is some of the worst Orientalism I’ve seen in a while. Just a mash-up of random Asian culture. To those who do not live in America, it’s cool. You probably don’t think anything of it because you don’t have the same history we do in America,” one person commented on YouTube. “This hurts Asian-Americans though. Sure, there will be many who are okay with it, but there’s enough of a voice from those who aren’t okay with it and feel fetishized and belittled by it.”
Many others said it was a beautiful, AMA-worthy tribute that should just be taken at face value. It’s also worth noting Katy is certainly not the first to employ cultural elements in a live performance: Gwen Stefani famously walked many a’ red carpets in the mid-2000s with her backup dancers, the Harajuku girls. More recently, Selena Gomez wore a bindi while performing Come and Get It during the MTV Movie Awards.
