Jake Jacob‘s rendition of Lady Gaga’s Sourcandy – irrelevantly named Power Bottom – once again begs the question; is it really a parody if you just replace all the words with ‘bottom’?
Parody; an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.
Even with the undeniable wit of lyrics like, “he’s loose on the outside, but if you give him time, he can tighten up his hole”, we’re left waiting for the parodic punchlines, because it’s not enough to change all the lyrics to poppers and poop and anything else that reflects bottom culture at ass-value.
I mean… it is… if it’s funny.
And… We’ve seen this before. Most notably with Boy Is A Bottom, which stands out as a parody in breaking relatively new ground with the satirical humour reinforced by the tone of the song.
So it wasn’t as well… erm, ‘received’ when Pablo Hernandez mimicked Madge’s Bitch! I’m Madonna! with – yes, you guess it – Bitch! I’m a Bottom!(Yeah, you and every other bitch in West Hollywood).
So, no, it’s not an original idea. About as original as the “PWR BTTM” vest Jacob chose to wear.
And this is the thing with a ‘parody’; they require a level of intellect to execute properly and are generally at the expense of other people. Queens of Pop, for example, didn’t have much (read: any) budget, but they didn’t scrimp on humour:
To attempt a parody without a target (who is being parodied, bottoms? Tops? Lady Gaga?) leaves the idea with no direction, while the lack of ‘zingers’ renders the playing-off bottom tropes lazy at best.
It’s great that we live in a world where (some) queer people can be open about their sexuality, and as the host of a sex-positive podcast I champion that too… but unless it’s hysterical, a song that repeatedly begs “cum in me” could be seen as reductive.
Visually, they’re supposed to be over the top and ridiculous and it felt like the only person who really did that was Bo-Selecta huffing the poppers. It feels as though the video was clearly constructed by bottoms to make them appear as subjects of desire instead of satire.
Although we have to admit, at least there’s some good butts in the video… so not totally pointless.
Perhaps, y’all (I say y’all referring mostly to Americans) might think that this uptight Brit is being too harsh on what’s just a bit of fun… But it’s like the British always say; it’s all fun and games until you make us cringe. Then it’s over. Everyone go home.