Image Analysis 6: Image of a Celebrity

This is a photo of the American singer Katy Perry during a 2009 performance on The Today Show. Katy Perry is known for her theatrical style of dressing, often wearing clothes that channel the themes of her up-beat pop songs. This red sequined fuzzy dice dress was worn in coordination with the performance of her song “Waking up in Vegas”. Her band was also dressed up in dollar bill suits. The spectacle of her physical appearance and clothing choices create a strong rhetorical relationship between text, writer and audience, which seeks to promote her celebrity status, sexuality and music. As the writer of this particular “Vegas” themed text, Katy Perry chose to associate herself and her band with her music in an overt way – by dressing up in stereotypical symbols of Las Vegas. Her costume makes a direct connection with the well-known glitzy and gambling image of Las Vegas through the bold colours, fabric, cut and adornment of the physical object of fuzzy dice. Her hair and makeup choices also reflect this air of Las Vegas performance. The message is communicated to her teen and young adult audience in an obvious and cheeky way.

Pop stars are visual spectacles to be gazed upon and Katy Perry certainly gives her audience something to look at. The argument is one which aims to promote her identity as intimately tied to her profession. This identity presents a fun, youthful, light-hearted and over-the-top package of escapism from the real world. Her theatricality is accepted because her position as a performance artist in the world of heavily produced popular music holds cultural resonance. Her exaggerated image and music are finely crafted to appeal to young people. Using ethos through the appeal to her celebrity status and sexual attractiveness, Katy Perry often and very successfully uses her clothing as performance rhetoric to promote her music career.

Grossman, Ashley. “Katy Perry Rolls In Dice.” Weblog posting. GlamChic. 27 Jul. 2009. 23 Nov. 2010                   
                <http://blogs.glam.com/glamchic/files/2009/07/katy.jpg>.