It would be easy (for some) to misread Kesha’s “Boy Crazy” video in the same way that people have misread Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend album cover. Which is to say, the masses tend to take everything at face value, especially in the twenty-first century. Meaning that someone might look at “Boy Crazy” and manage to glean from it that Kesha is “objectifying herself” rather than the men she talks about in the song (thus, perhaps people were hoping for a “Make Me” by Britney Spears video concept, wherein the male objectification is on full blast). The men of whom she says, “Many men are on the menu (eat ‘em up like amuse-bouche)/Boys better beware, I’m on a man tear.”
Unfortunately, Kesha might have trouble with a successful “man tear” whilst being caught amongst a sea of gay men. Even so, there’s no doubt that Kesha wanted to release this specific video at some point during Pride Month to show her continued allyship for the gays who call her “Mother” (and yes, there’s a big reference to being Mother at the end of the video).
Opening on a scene of what can best be described as a “White Trash Last Supper” (complete with an American flag tablecloth and a sign above them that reads, “Rodeo Fans Welcome”), the Kesha, Brett Loudermilk and Zain Curtis-directed video quickly devolves into a gay dance party. In effect, this can be read, in the present political climate, as an outright act of defiance against what the American flag has come to represent (though Lana Del Rey likely didn’t get the memo). And yet, because Kesha is doing “degrading” things—or rather, things that would only be considered degrading if she were doing them for the “benefit” of a straight man—it’s easy to see why the more literal set would try to get up in arms over certain moments.
Take, for instance, Kesha piggybacking on a shirtless man while holding a bamboo fishing rod with some pink lace panties hooked to the end of it as “bait.” After all, one of the lyrics is, “They been tryna get me in my underwear/Get me in my underwear.” Though what that really means is trying to get her out of her underwear. That is, if these men weren’t interested in Kesha purely from a gay icon standpoint—which they clearly are (then again, no one appreciates appraising the female form quite like a gay man). As such, they can get on board with Kesha suggestively peeling a banana (a.k.a. the ultimate phallic symbol of the fruit kingdom [whereas eggplant reigns over the vegetable one]) while at the table. But she doesn’t go “all out” with this banana the way she did when she pantomimed giving a blow j to one of her dancers holding said fruit to his groin area during a live performance of “Boy Crazy” at Mighty Hoopla (billed as “Europe’s largest LGBTQIA+ music festival”) earlier this month.
The camp continues to accelerate in another scene of Kesha sitting in a chair next to some hay bales while she holds an ass-out man in the “wheelbarrow position.” Her expression is calm as the other two men next to her do their own respective “whatever”—one man dancing wildly, and another sitting on the ground in a Feeld shirt. And yes, Feeld is given plenty of play in the video since Kesha is their “brand ambassador,” so to speak, having promoted the dating app many times since appearing at an SXSW panel with them, during which she commented, “I really love that Feeld embraces you for wherever you’re at in your sexual journey, whatever that means to you… I have explored non-monogamy. I’ve been in love with many, many men and many, many women, and currently where I’m at is I am looking for a sugar daddy. I love being able to just be open and honest about it, because I’m fucking into somebody taking care of me, putting me on a pedestal, taking me on their yacht and flying me on their plane. I’m just into it, and I will not feel shame about that.” Surely, a sentiment that many a twink can get on board (the yacht) with. And yes, it proves that even rich women are still looking for rich men (adding a lot of competition into the mix for the Vivian Ward types).
In any case, the Feeld alliance is a long way from the PlentyOfFish.com one that Kesha was promoting in the “We R Who We R” video. And she’s sure to showcase it much more than she did in the latter, including scenes of herself using the app on her phone and the car she’s perched in being spray-painted with the phrase, “Find me on Feeld.”
In the lead-up to the grand finale, and perhaps to ensure that the dafter viewers don’t mistake her message of queer allyship as opposed to “straight female degradation,” she has a pair of “motorcycle daddy”-type men start making out with abandon. This intercut with more scenes of careless revelry, including a moment of Kesha with her own ass out as she sprays hose water over the man who was previously dancing behind her amid the hay bales.
The true finale, however, is Kesha dressed like a hippie Virgin Mary as she sits atop a rock above a pool holding one of her gays to her breast like the Mother they see her as. And, after all, she said on “Joyride,” “You want kids?/Well, I am Mother.” She continues to take that sentiment very seriously for “Boy Crazy,” proving her commitment to the queer community by making the video as gay male-oriented as possible. In fact, the only thing missing is a rainbow flag—but then, that would be far more obvious (not!) than ass-out leather daddies. What’s more continuing to parade the American flag like it’s anything other than an embarrassment at this point in time also shows Kesha’s commitment to not giving up hope on the country. A country that was once making so much progress on LGBTQIA+ rights. Now, sadly, it’s left up to the likes of Kesha to help advocate at a grassroots level, selflessly turning what could be deemed her “straight girl anthem” into an undeniable gay boy one.
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