Courting controversy by kissing girls: can t.A.T.u be blamed for Katy Perry?

September 8th, 2008

From t.A.T.u to Katy Perry via Britney and Madonna, artificial representations of lesbian sexuality no longer seem quite so shocking. Instead they come off as both contrived and offensive. But can this posturing be having a positive impact on queer culture? Jane Bradley investigates…

All the things she said

The subject of faux-lesbianism is certain to be revived by the forthcoming release of Roland Joffé’s film You and I, which debuted at Cannes in April. The film, which features cameos from t.A.T.u, follows the complex relationship of two teenage girls who meet online through a t.A.T.u fansite.

Arguably t.A.T.u were the ones to start the fake-lesbian trend, and in spectacular fashion too.

In 2002 the band skyrocketed to global stardom when All The Things She Said became the first single by a Russian group to make the top spot in the UK singles chart, and sold more than 4 million copies worldwide.

This, of course, was in no small part thanks to the scandalous music video that accompanied the single. It featured the teenage Lena and Julia in Catholic schoolgirl uniforms, kissing in the pouring rain in front of crowd of disapproving onlookers.

Perhaps predictably, uproar ensued, including a campaign from Richard and Judy to have the video banned due to concern that it pandered to paedophiles.

Out of the straight closet

Not long after their massive surge in popularity, t.A.T.u were ‘outed’. They weren’t the lesbian couple they had previously claimed to be in interviews and marketing material. Many fans felt betrayed, and the media debated how much control the girls had had over their image.

Straight celebrities pretending to be gay is nothing new, of course. In their early days, Take That were aggressively marketed to gay audiences by founder Nigel Martin Smith. The video to their 1991 debut single Do What U Like features the boys smeared in jelly showing off their pert teenage bare bottoms.

But male or female, tokenistic homoeroticism for the sake of increasing sales has troubling ramifications for queer culture.

The media circus is consistently titillated when hot, young feminine women – presumed by default to be straight – reveal more Sapphic tastes. This of itself is problematic, and highlights the deep entrenching of stereotypes. Decades of cultural conditioning means that mainstream society still has difficulty reconciling itself with the reality that not all lesbians have crew cuts and tool belts.

It’s on this basis that journalist Sarah Warn has concerns about the sexual and moral standpoint of t.A.T.u, believing they reinforce the male gaze as the ultimate audience for lesbian sex: “Although many lesbian and bisexual teenage girls are big fans of t.A.T.u, the girls’ songs, videos, clothing, and photos are clearly designed to appeal to straight men, and promote the male-centred, voyeuristic version of lesbianism that is so popular in straight male porn.”

Warn believes that the continued popularity of t.A.T.u among bisexual and lesbian audiences is a testament to the fact that “we’re so starved for any representation of ourselves in popular music that we’re trying to make [t.A.T.u] into something they’re not.”

Positive effect?

However, could it be that these high profile representations of lesbian sexuality may actually have a positive side effect? As the media becomes saturated with examples of celebrities going gay, will they lose their value as news?

Lindsay Lohan’s current relationship with Samantha Ronson caused widespread speculation when they were first seen kissing or holding hands. But for the fickle press, this has quickly become old news, with gossips and paparazzi alike seeming to accept and even rapidly become bored with developments in the couple’s relationship.

This suggests that awareness, and to some extent tolerance and understanding, can be born out of having lesbian celebrities in the limelight.

In a rather glib article for the New York Times, journalist Jessica Coen recently claimed that: “As far as career moves go, going insta-gay has entered into downright predictable territory (and predictability, in these matters, might as well be a sin).”

With the forthcoming general release of Joffé’s You and I, the issue of fake lesbianism is sure to be resurrected, generating many more column inches of coverage and debate. Whilst some might regard this with trepidation, surely it is no bad thing if the end result is more discussions of queer issues in the mainstream press.

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