Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)

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At the end of the day, Katy Perry’s awfully immediate documentary about her life on the road is as hard hitting and candid as your normal fluff piece on an entertainment TV show. “Part of Me” is really supposed to be a film for the Katy Perry fan club where she strives, enjoys life, and reveals her hardships from a struggling Christian singer to a fairly so so pop star. It’s all fluff and should really be called “Katy Perry is Amazing” when all is said and done. Admittedly, I watched “Part of Me” for two reasons. One: for the simple fact that Katy Perry is incredibly sexy and I harbor a crush on her, and two: she’s like Lady Gaga, except not pretentious and much more fun.

She also looks damn great doing what she does. True, Perry hasn’t had the output of hits like Lady Gaga, but she’s been a fun antithesis to that Bjork wannabe who seems to revel in her disposable pop music and ballads. And you have to respect her compensating her lack of volume in hits by making it as a pin up model, one who is quite fetching more times than not. I won’t kid, Katy Perry never looks awful in this documentary and that’s likely because even in her “candid” footage she was likely painstakingly made up for her audience.

She’s established very early as this moral upstanding Christian girl who grew up in a Christian family, and made good for herself, which most religious based audiences will adore. And a small quarter of the documentary is based around her upbringing and uses this as a positive aspect of her life, in spite of her and her siblings’ reservations about being banned from watching Wizard of Oz or listening to Michael Jackson. “Part of Me” works as a fun and breezy look at a music artist who may not be complex or artistic, but is a lot like candy: disposable, sugary, and tasty. Much like Perry’s music “Part of Me” is filler that you don’t have to decrypt or explore with subtext about her personality or psyche.

She’s basically about Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top in “Part of Me” and never ashamed to flaunt such airy and fancy free pop music that never quite manages to reach the depths of garbage folks like Kesha are prone to doling out for fans. Sure, I bet someday there will be a tell all chronicle about Perry’s life and her experiences with her faith, her music, and her relationships, but “Part of Me” seems mostly pointed toward her fans who want to bask in the delightful and vivacious Perry. The documentary never aims to paint Perry as anything other than a simple woman looking for some fun, even in her career, and most of the film is about her hardships in the music industry and struggling to find a foot hold in a place devoted to pop queens.

Along the way we garner some interesting–if staged–glimpses at her relationship with her grandmother, her encounters with her fans, and her inevitable heartbreak with her husband Russell Brand and how she forces herself on stage to perform in spite of barely being able to go a minute without breaking in to hysterical tears about the inevitable divorce. “Part of Me” is not the hard hitting expose many other music documentaries have aimed to be, and because of that it serves its purpose as a fix of Perry for her fans. As a film it really offers nothing but a very fuzzy and fluffy look at a woman who seeks to entertain and be on her way. Katy Perry is a gorgeous and charismatic woman who looks good in anything, and as a promotional tool, “Part of Me” works wonders for her and will assuredly be fun for her hardcore fan base. If you’re looking for candid hard hitting looks behind her life, you’ll have to wait a while.

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