FURRY MONSTERS
A Letter to Katy Perry, From a Bipolar Mom Who Still Loves Elmo
Let’s Talk About Mental Health
Dear Katy,
I’m no sanctimommy.
I was 100% behind you when you bounced your boobage as you sang on Sesame Street. How prude are people that they couldn’t deal with that? It was funny. The show’s preschool-aged audience wasn’t going to notice!
I’m a fan. Every time I run on my treadmill I watch your music videos to get pumped by their sick beats. My favorite song is “This is How We Do,” with its hot, 1950s-era ice cream salesboy.
Most pearl-clutchers of late — read: people trying to ban books/media for idiotic reasons — aren’t getting themselves into a lather over pop-music thirst-trap extras selling sno-cones. At least, not publicly. And they’re usually abreast (sorry) of the latest thing to be offended by. More often than not, it involves something they think is “pro”-LGBTQIA+ in some oblique way. Whatever.
The thing I’m writing to you about is more than a decade and a half old — your lyrics to “Hot N Cold.”
Please don’t perpetuate dumb stereotypes about bipolar with your lyrics. Bipolar disorder is one of the most stigmatized, poorly-understood illnesses ever to ill.
Sadly for my children, there’s never been a Very Special Episode of “Elmo’s World” called “Mommy Has Bipolar I and Yells at You Sometimes and Also Randomly Gets Naked in the Front Yard and Chats With the Gardener Like it’s NBD, But Absolutely None of This Has Ever Been Your Fault, Honey.”
Oh, is it ever not your fault, John, Wes, Easter, Zeke, Gale, and Andy. And it’s not your fault, either, Joe — my long-suffering husband. Bipolar is no more somebody’s fault than it would be Elmo’s if Dorothy, his goldfish, were diabetic.
Michael Jordan once publicly insisted he’s not a role model. If anything’s cray-cray, that line of thinking is. Young people look to strong women like you, Katy, to make sense of the world.
I was only recently diagnosed with bipolar I, but in retrospect it’s been marionetting me for all my life. Now that I’ve been parenting with this disease for going-on-twenty years, I’m committed to educating people about it: what bipolar isn’t, and what it is.
FYI: It’s not about indecision.
And when you sing these words, it makes my job harder —
“(You) You don’t really want to stay, no (You) But you don’t really want to go You’re hot then you’re cold You’re yes then you’re no You’re in then you’re out You’re up then you’re down Someone call the doctor Got a case of a love bipolar Stuck on a roller coaster Can’t get off this ride”
— Perry, K.; Gottwald, L.; & Martin, M. (2008)
“Hot N Cold” was released in the late aughts. It hasn’t been new since “Elmo’s World” was still a segment on Sesame. And your One of the Boys album is not about me or a medical issue, I know. Your hit looks to be about the utter frustration of a hot-and-cold romance. Or perhaps I’m misinterpreting the music video.
One thing is likely: my kids are genetically predisposed to a serious mental illness, and I live with the guilt of that every day. I carry the shame of fucking things up with my manic behavior, irritability, and catastrophic crash. I carry the fear that their brains have bipolar, too.
For everyone’s sake, the stigma should end. But more than anybody else, future generations could benefit from an (updated) song— and maybe even your spoken words, after the fact.
Kesha went back and revised one of her songs, after all.
You could make a TikTok parody — in a monster-furred mini-dress with your cleave out, maybe, to broaden the audience.
Katy: [*Sings out loud in falsetto* ] La la lala, La la lala, Elmo’s World…
Elmo: Hey, everybody! Elmo’s friend Katy loves to sing her song on the radio. But Elmo wants to sing it differently. Elmo knows it’s never too late to sing a different tune…
[Fade to NAMI website link].
Sincerely,
A Mom
Join Lindy Vogel on Medium, subscribe, and follow Sweary Mommy to watch more Sesame Street cameos that are way more entertaining than Andrea Bocelli’s.