CMU School of Drama


Friday, May 01, 2015

Katy Perry Sunflower Dress Sparks Controversy in China

Rolling Stone: Katy Perry sparked controversy in China after a recent concert in Taipei, Taiwan, where she donned both a Taiwanese flag and a sunflower dress, which many viewed as a pro-Taiwanese statement and expression of solidarity with the 2014 Sunflower Student Movement, E! reports.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hmm... I'm sure that Katy Perry did not intend on offending her fans. I mean its only a dress. Im sure she didn't mean anything by it. Now a days, I feel that celebrities are being constantly watched. Everything they do is spread across social media and I think that is ridiculous. They should be able to do whatever they want without having it spread across the news. Thats one of the ugly thing about this business.
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Olivia Hern said...

Visual statements like this are powerful things. That is why we do art. We use images to communicate ideas and sentiments. A visual statement like the one Katy Perry made is a huge one. It could be called a revolutionary art, if it weren't for the fact that it is being worn by Katy Perry. This woman has a long and colorful history of seizing controversial topics in order to make herself edgy and talked about. She is guilty of cultural appropriation on multiple counts, paints herself as racist caricature of african americans, actual African cultures, and various asian cultures, and capitalizes on demeaning and provocative images. If there was even a chance that Katy knew what she was wearing symbolized, I don't think she wore it for solidarity. She wore it so that we would talk about her, and it worked. There are articles about her all over the internet, and even one on this very blog. She is not a revolutionary. She is provocateur