Katy Perry's Idol flirting is treated as a joke, but is it problematic in the #MeToo era?

The Washington Post

Perry ran into some controversy last week for giving contestant Benjamin Glaze his first kiss without permission. But the flirtation didn't stop there. She's been flirtatious with a number of contestants, including an 18-year-old crooner. “Eighteen-year-old girls would eat this up! If a 32-year-old cougar would eat it up," she said. As Emily Yahr notes, Perry may have good intentions, but they seem problematic in this #MeToo era: "Idol producers and the network seem excited to treat Perry’s shtick as a joke. Same with the contestants — but then, do they really have a choice? That gets into the power dynamics issue that the entertainment industry has been forced to confront over the last several months. As a result, it can become more uncomfortable to watch auditions such as the one starring 26-year-old William Casanova: Although he and Perry had an entertaining rapport, he had to retrieve his ticket to Hollywood from between Perry’s toes after she found out that he was a shoe salesman."

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