Kim Petras *Can* Do Better
Kim Petras could be a huge pop star very soon. The trans, German-born pop singer is quickly growing in prominence, dropping delectable & sugary pop anthems left and right; she just released her debut album, Clarity. She has three songs with over 10 million streams each on Spotify, kicks off her first-ever headlining tour tomorrow, and has worked with pop icons like Charli XCX and Troye Sivan.
At some point, though, she’s going to have to properly address a serious mark on her career: her ongoing collaboration with Dr. Luke, the man accused of sexual assaulting and raping Kesha. He’s also helped write most, if not all, of Petras’s songs.
VICE wrote a piece in January about how Petras, who was nominated for a GLAAD Award (which was won by Janelle Monaé), may not be deserving of such an award. Should GLAAD, an organization that promotes queer rights and works to change the narrative around LGBTQ issues, reward Petras? Despite her continuous collaborations with an alleged abuser infamous in pop culture? And, even if you were to focus solely on the trans visibility that Petras offers on her platform; might there be another queer performer who is more dedicated to using their platform to further queer activism who may be more deserving?
I was a huge fan of Petras starting in the fall of 2017. She had dropped ‘I Don’t Want It At All,’ one of her biggest hits, with a Paris Hilton feature in the music video. It was the no-frills, materialistic pop with infectious hooks that I die for. I remember her having around 12,000 followers on Instagram and tens of thousands of streams on Spotify, and after doing my research and learning that she was not only trans but had made headlines a decade ago for becoming what is believed to be the youngest person to undergo gender reassignment surgery, I had to stan! She wasn’t very big yet, her sound was unabashedly pop, and I wanted to be along for the ride.
And she has built a following (almost 330,000 followers on Instagram as of this post) with her irresistible pop sound that attracts the girls and the gays, despite her working with Dr. Luke already getting out into the press.
When fans learned that she was working with Dr. Luke back when she was announced to tour with queer pop star Troye Sivan, enough backlash caused her to post a response on Twitter, albeit in celebrity-approved iPhone notes format. It was a shitty apology, if you could even call it an apology, in which she says she has had a ‘positive experience’ working with Dr. Luke but that that shouldn’t ‘negate or dismiss the experience of others.’ Huh? She put together what looked like an apology on paper, but it never showed that she feels any remorse for/stands with Kesha, and it doesn’t do anything to combat rape culture or misogyny. It was weak.
Meanwhile, in addition to litigation regarding Kesha’s case against Dr. Luke (which is STILL ONGOING with the next trial date still unknown to the public), those who have worked with him have echoed condemning opinions of him (like Pink, Interscope executive John Janick and Kelly Clarkson), and plenty of other celebrities have been outspoken in their support of Kesha and vilification of Dr. Luke.
Essentially, in the midst of all of this, I’m wondering who Kim Petras really is. She performed in NYC this summer as part of the 2019 World Pride festivities, which specifically celebrated the 50th anniversary of the pivotal Stonewall Riots. She was up for a GLAAD award. She received a favorable 7.2 rating from Pitchfork for Clarity.
It pains me to see her non-action. Her success to this point is exciting not only for pop fans, not only for the queer community-at-large, but especially for trans visibility. It is no doubt that she has had to work incredibly hard to get to where she is today, and there can and will be adversity to come in the music industry because of her transness. Indubitably, she carries huge potential for trans and queer folk as a pop star with pop girl potential. All we got in response to critics and fans questioning her about Dr. Luke was the iPhone notes apology, and I’m wondering if she’s ever going to seriously talk about the situation.
What do we do when her success has been scaled with the help of an alleged rapist? What do we do when he’s profiting off of her every charting hit? When he’s still raking in cash while litigation with Kesha quietly rages on? Can’t she stay true to her sound? Is it even her sound? Can’t she find another songwriter, another group of producers, another way to climb the charts?
As The Atlantic’s Spencer Kornhaber wrote last August, “as he loudly contests Kesha’s claims in public and in court, Dr. Luke may have found a quieter, if catchier, way to bypass the obstacle of his reputation.” And Petras has yet to prove that she really gives a damn about it.
Wesleyan University ’18. Bylines at SwimSwam News (@swimswam) and iExplore (@iexplore). Living in a lovely mixture of general disarray, fear, excitement, dread, dreaminess, and panic. Did I mention disarray? View all posts by karlortegon
Originally published at http://karloctagon.home.blog on May 15, 2019.
