Greetings loved ones, let's take a journey.
"California Gurls" is a 2010 song by Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg, and is the first single off Katy Perry's third album, Teenage Dream. It is a pop song about Perry and Dogg extolling about how awesome it is to be in California, and especially also how hot the girls are.
The music video, in contrast, goes in a very different direction. It stars Katy Perry as the unnamed main character, a player piece in a board game called Candyfornia. In Candyfornia, Katy must rescue trapped women called Queens of Candyfornia and has to confront the main villain, the Sugar Daddy (played by Snoop Dogg).
The music video is available here
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Tropes in "California Gurls" and its music video:
- 11th-Hour Superpower: At their final showdown, Katy gains the ability to shoot whipped cream cannons to take out the Sugar Daddy's gummy bear army.
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Katy extols how unforgettable Californian women like herself are by describing them as "fine, fresh, fierce."
- Auto-Tune: The ending of the song where Katy repeatedly calls out "California!" is rather exaggeratedly auto-tuned, putting Katy's vocals in the background to ensure focus on Snoop Dogg's ending remarks.
- Big Bad: Sugar Daddy, played by Snoop Dogg, tries to stop Katy from getting to the end of the board.
- Bloodless Carnage: Due to him being made out of gingerbread, the gingerbread man (who is outright dismembered and partially eaten) ends up as bloodless pieces of himself despite everything that happened to him.
- Damsel in Distress: Katy has to rescue the Queens of Candyfornia, who are trapped in various binds including a bubble, a plastic wrapper, and a cube of green jelly.
- Eaten Alive: Katy and two Queens eat a hostile gingerbread man alive after distracting him by literally giving him a heart.
- Edible Theme Clothing: The video has Katy and the other human denizens of Candyfornia wearing candy-themed clothing, such as bras designed like cupcakes, peppermints, and whipped cream bottles worn by Katy at the end.
- Flipping the Bird: A gummy bear enemy seemingly flips the bird on Katy when they meet, which takes Katy aback by his rudeness. Pixellation censors the actual gesture used.
- Gelatinous Encasement: One of the queens Katy finds in Candyfornia is trapped inside a giant green cube of jelly.
- Level Ate: Candyfornia is infested with confections of many types, including cotton candy, lollipops, gingerbread, and candy canes. Katy also literally eats a gingerbread man, on top of that!
- Orcus on His Throne: Sugar Daddy spends most of Candyfornia overlooking the board and rolling dice, until Katy and the Queens get to the end of the board to confront him.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The Queens of Candyfornia, despite their name, do not seem to have any ruling functions.
- Pixellation: The rude gesture that a gummy bear throws at Katy is censored via pixellation.
- [Popular Saying], But...: The song starts with Katy stating that she knows, that in California, the grass is really greener. She spends the song singing the praises of how California is exciting even from her own perspective as a Californian, turning the expression on its head.
- Portmanteau: Candyfornia is obviously one of "Candy" and "California".
- Punny Name: Sugar Daddy is a play on the phrase "sugar daddy", where instead of spending on younger girlfriends, Sugar Daddy merely lives in a land full of sugary treats.
- Shout-Out: The song's deliberate misspelling of "Girls" as "Gurls" in the title is a reference to Big Star's song "September Gurls" which had done the same, in tribute to Big Star's recently deceased leader Alex Chilton.
- The Unfought: Sugar Daddy is not fought directly; he surrenders as soon as his gummy bear army is knocked out.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Despite having human-like sentience and never engaging directly in a fight, only the non-human characters like the gingerbread man and the gummy bear army are subject to violence like being shot down by whipped-cream cannons or being outright eaten alive, and by the human protagonists at that!
- A Wild Rapper Appears!: Snoop Dogg raps a single guest verse.
