When Avril Lavigne decided to tie the knot with Nickelback lead singer Chad Kroeger last year, it became pretty clear that she didn’t give a damn what anyone thought about her. Not that she hadn’t already portrayed that vibe prior to that, what with her oh-so-edgy Canadian faux-punk vibe on tracks like “Sk8er Boi” and “Complicated,” but the union to one of the most laughed-at men in rock-n-roll really was the Smirnoff icing on her career. You see, in Kroeger she found more than just a soulmate and second husband. She found a songwriter and producer who could help her expand her sound as she steps into her 30s, and that sound is apparently what we’ve now heard in the much-talked-about “Hello Kitty.”
Almost immediately after the video started spreading like wildfire, critics went one of three ways with it: 1) “This is f*cking awful”; 2) “This is f*cking awful and a sad Xerox of early-00s Gwen Stefani”; or 3) “This is f*cking awful, unoriginal and just downright racist.” Now, we could debate the idea that the video for “Hello Kitty” is racist until our heads fall off, as a lot of people think that it’s an insult to Japanese culture, while others don’t seem to have a problem with it. But let’s just go straight to the wailing, dying moose’s mouth and see what Lavigne thinks about the backlash.
Very mature, 30-year old celebrity. Look, I don’t ever want anyone to think I’m defending Lavigne over anything, because I have worked very hard to build up my pop punk street cred (SIMPLE PLAN RULES!), but I don’t think this song is racist. Honestly, I don’t care if everyone but me thinks that it’s racist. This isn’t what we should be talking about.
Instead, we should focus on the matter at hand – this song is an unholy aural catastrophe that makes Brooke Hogan’s music sound like Pearl Jam. We shouldn’t be asking, “Is this racist?” because we should be asking, “How did this get made?” And then we should ask, “Who is listening to this?” and whack them all over the heads with rolled up magazines until they realize what they’ve done.
