Hey Parents, Use Avril Lavigne’s ‘Hello Kitty’ Video To Teach Your Kids About Racism
Avril Lavigne in the new video for Hello Kitty should be totally kid-friendly, at least at first glance. Even though she is almost 30-years-old, she still looks like a tween with her faux Skrillex multi-colored hair and her little cupcake skirt she purchased at some Katy Perry yard sale. Plus, the song is all about Hello Kitty, or at least that is the title of it until you actually listen to the song and realize it is all about Lavigne’s vagina. I don’t want to pick on her. She is harmless bubblegum post pink-pop and I have always felt sort of bad for Avril. Until I watched this video.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiaYDPRedWQ ]
If you have a young daughter at home and play this video with the volume turned up, she will run into the room all excited that someone is singing a song about Hello Kitty. At least my own daughter did. Hello Kitty is awesome and adorable and I think all kids love her. But you can’t really share this video with your own children, unless you feel like explaining to them all about why people shouldn’t be used as props and how Tokyo isn’t just some candy colored cupcake fun land filled with submissive Japanese schoolgirls who behave like robots. It’s so racist that I can’t even. Plus, as I mentioned above, I’m pretty sure Avril is not actually singing about everyone’s favorite mouth-less kitty, but actually, about her vagina:
Come come Kitty Kitty
You’re so silly silly
Don’t go Kitty Kitty
Play with me
Yuck-o, right? Plus, additional lyrics include:
Let’s all slumber party
Like a fat kid on a pack of Smarties
Someone chuck a cupcake at me
So there you have it. Horrible cultural appropriation which Avril should have learned her lesson from Gwen Stefani‘s Harajuku Girls in 2004, creepy vaginal references, and shaming fat kids. Awesome! Hopefully any parents who have kids who geek out over this video will take a few moments to explain to them how problematic this while candy-colored mess is.
