Like Kacey Musgraves trying to prompt viewers to turn to her back catalogue of Christmas songs under the guise of a faux campy Xmas special, Katy Perry, too, wants to remind people of a track she released last year called “Cozy Little Christmas”–just about the most demeaning title and image one could think of when picturing Orlando Bloom handcuffed to a tree while being force fed eggnog. To make us remember that she’s still the ultimate “California Gurl” (laying claim to the title well before Lana Del Rey came along riding on her broom from New York), the Watts-directed music video that didn’t really need to accompany it at this point showcases a sunny Christmas spent poolside.
But not before Perry styles herself as new model of Mrs. Claus, awaiting Santa to come home from a hard day at work and disrobe into, for some reason, a cliche of what tourists wear in Hawaii (then again, Perry seems fond of bastardizing Hawaii of late). Handing him some hot chocolate in a mug that looks just like his head, the two toast by the tree. Soon, a bevy of classic stop-motion animation characters (including Rudolph) show up to join the allegedly “cozy” therefore “intimate” Xmas. It is then that Perry and Santa relax by the pool as the former lyingly declares, “I don’t need diamonds, no sparkly things/’Cause you can’t buy this a-feeling/Nothing lights my fire or wraps me up, baby, like you do/Just want a cozy, a cozy little Christmas here with you.” Then why does it feel like this attempt at playing the part of the “God bless us everyone” martyr is merely an underhanded way to get more gifts from her Santa/Daddy figure in the end?
That’s certainly what it seems like when she coyly sings, “I don’t need anything/Take back all the Cartier, and the Tiffany’s and the Chanel/Well, can I keep that Chanel? Please?” All after buttering her fat Santa up with an image we’ll never be able to unsee in the form of his portly body being massaged by reindeer hoofs. To encourage his festive spirit, which seems to have waned over the course of being responsible for holiday cheer masked as the mass promotion of materialism, Perry stylizes herself in something resembling her One of the Boys/Teenage Dream-era persona as she does a burlesque-inspired act in a giant martini glass filled with eggnog. No, it doesn’t feel like she relishes decadence during the holidays at all.
As she gets drunk on shots of eggnog in the kitchen, talking to her stop-motion critters while dressed as some “zany” version of Marilyn Monroe (minus the hair, a red wig filled with ornaments), it’s clear she’s having a war with regard to the words she’s speaking versus the visuals she’s presenting. Not to mention the fact that this video represents the long-standing fetishization of Santa many women have based solely on the material lust he evokes within them during the Christmas season. And the more she chants, “I don’t need diamonds, no sparkly things” amid, well, an environment filled with sparkly things, the less we believe that she’s not just pumping Santa for the benefit of his clout with capitalism, serving as one of its most major mascots, in fact.
With reference to the song that the images riff on, “Santa Baby,” made famous by both Eartha Kitt and Madonna, at least has the gumption to be unapologetic about how much one’s love of the holiday stems from the void it briefly fills via the showering of material goods upon one’s hourglass figure. “Cozy Little Christmas,” in contrast, reeks of falsity, and, in truth, for messages that tout not needing material over love, one is better off revisiting The Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love,” Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” or Jennifer Lopez’s “Love Don’t Cost A Thing.” In contrast, Perry’s offering to the world of Christmas schlock would–in opposition to its intended message–be quite well-suited to soundtracking a Target commercial. Ah, but who needs a commercial when this song will be playing in Targets and other major corporate bastions for years to come? At the very least, they might try to include the more honest “Santa Baby” in between it now and again.
