On the basis of evidence that once-reliable wedge issues like abortion and gay rights are no longer helping Republicans win any elections, some observers are declaring that after 30 years, the Culture Wars have finally ended. That may be premature, but Ke$ha’s not one to delay a party. As the popular vote was being finalized (Romney earned 49% rather than 47%, proving that he’s right about at least one thing: God has no sense of humor), Ke$ha released a video that includes almost everything squares used to complain about seeing — or imagining they saw — on MTV back when the Culture Wars began.
The song’s subject matter itself would go on that list, if Ke$ha’s snotty snarl was remotely credible as a vehicle for expressing contentment with a premature death. She already sounds so blasé about her supposedly debaucherous life that you can’t believe she’d find courting death to be worth the effort. If Katy Perry, on the other hand, threw a mention of dying young into “Last Friday Night,” you might actually get scared. (“We had a menage-a-trois/ and we left the condoms off/ ’cause we’re gonna die young!”) Ke$ha can arrive in a hearse, and no one bats an eye.
She does, of course, arrive in a hearse, after which she’s lifted onto a litter in the first of many Madonna ripoffs — excuse me, references. Madge had “Like a Prayer” with its suggestively burning crosses, but Ke$ha goes straight for the Satanic pentagram, lest you misinterpret what she and her leather-clad minions are up to as they kick chairs around in a Spanish-style desert chapel: either Ke$ha’s a spawn of the devil or she’s just been informed there’s no basement in the Alamo.
Having rolled back the rug, the partiers proceed to engage in some unconvincing bisexual necking (Katy: “I kissed a girl, and I liked it!” Ke$ha: “I got humped by some bitch in a dog collar, and it was whatever.”), then the star of the show takes a solo writhe on a dirty mattress — presumably we’re to imagine a Rosemary’s Baby scenario, but the lack of bloody scratches on Ke$ha’s back suggests that even Lucifer’s dick had better parties to crash.
Adding to the sense that this is all just advertising for Ke$ha’s-Black-Mass-themed party favors at your local Target, the video also includes breakdowns for some group choreography featuring moves copped from both Madonna (welcome to the gun show!) and Michael Jackson, introducing a third generation to the notion that the hardest motherfuckers on the street show they mean business by standing in V formation and rhythmically snapping their fingers. There must be guys who get knifed in dark alleys and go to their graves thinking, “It was no fair! He never gave me the warning snap!” Sorry, bro—hope you got your pew-kicking in, because you’re about to die young.
Words by Jay Gabler, a co-founder and co-editor of The Tangential.
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