Britney Spears is making her millionth ‘comeback’, which is certain to make most of the world shrug and get on with its day, leaving those mentalist, fervent Britney devotees to foam at the mouth and hurried try to disembowel anyone who dare offer any criticism against their tragic heroine.
And of course, there’s lot to take shots at. Her new single, ‘Hold It Against Me’ sounds like a dancefloor smash (and will no doubt sell well), but there’s something missing. It doesn’t have the magic of Spears at her best.
So too the promotional video for the track, which sees Britney looking toward GaGa for inspiration. There’s a feeling that, because someone’s been around longer, they couldn’t possibly copy anyone younger than them… which of course, is balls. Spears is in the middle of a pop mid-life crisis.
Since Lady GaGa exploded into the pop stratosphere, she’s changed the way the pop game is played, making each video she releases an ‘event’. Before, promotional videos would trickle out across music channels and people would stumble across them. GaGa released her records first and made the consumer wait for the visual representation, thereby, hyping up a product we already knew about.
Rather clever really.
And now, Britney is here to be a mini-GaGa, which effectively means that she’s playing with vaguely artist and bondage driven images, as well as being a tiny bit ‘weird’. Sadly for Spears, she clearly doesn’t have the courage to go whole hog, possibly a result of getting her fingers burned after singing “F.U.C.K. ME”.
First off. Here’s the Hold It Against Me video in full.
First off, we’re shown that, like Superman, Britney came to our Earth like a flaming fireball. Of course, we know that it’s true. Britney was of course born in a Disney factory in a testtube with Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Miley Cyrus and Scrooge McDuck.
When Britney lands, she’s all tortured superstar, finding herself in a Dystopian future which, of course, always means ‘millions of televisions’. Surrounded by images of herself, dogs and advertisements, Britney does what any of us would do when faced with this nightmarish vision… allows her legs to grow really, really long under a wedding dress. Totally, like, weird! LOL! *sigh*
And all these television sets aren’t enough. We’re also consumed by the internet. Britney wants to have a nod to the web in her video because, y’know, we’re all totally hooked to the cyberworld aren’t we? Not one of us can cope without regularly checking PlentyOfFish, which features spunky hotstuff ‘FlyMeToTheMoon’ who is, according to his profile, a ‘serious member’. A bit harsh.
But we don’t have it so bad. While we’re all ravaged by media, we ought to try being Britney for a day. She’s constantly hounded by the press, expertly shown in this moment she’s surrounded by loads and loads of microphones (presumably, every single one of them is rigged up to autotune devices, just to be on the safe side).
BUT WAIT! This video is making vague sense! We need to GaGaize it! Let us get some dancers with no eyeballs in to twat around. Yeah. High end art! That’s the stuff dreams are made of!
However, not one to miss out on a shilling, Britney decides that we all need to buy some Sony products. This still isn’t zoomed in. It is a literal screengrab from her new commercial… sorry, video for her new single (originally titled “If I Said You Had A Lovely Sony Flatscreen Television, Would You Hold It Against Me Or Buy Me One For A Very Competitive Price From A Leading Sony Retailer?”)
As we all know though, Britney’s worst enemy is herself. She’s constantly beating herself up about the decisions she’s made. And so, to underline this point, Britney literally beats herself up in the crappest game of Tekken ever. That’s right. The video features two different Britneys knocking lumps out of each other. Teenagers will be looking up her skirt throughout.
And if they see sufficient flange, then their computer monitors may well look like this.
And then, the two Britneys can make peace with the each other because, as the video tells us, she’s a packaged product… but she’s okay with that. The inner-turmoil and anguish has erupted, leaving her to be a self-referencing popstar who realises it is all one big game… like a dream almost. A dream with Sony televisions in it.
Crap! We forgot to do a GaGa dance-routine! Quick! Lets toy with S&M imagery quick! That’ll make us all look edgy in Camp Britney! Hurray! Now wasn’t that really weird and kooky gang?
Not in the slightest.
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X says
While I agree with some parts of this, there is nothing “Gaga” about this video at all. I’m a huge Gaga fan and I see absolutely no resemblance. There were no freaky long legs. it was her being metaphorically lifted up by the public, and at the end, hitting rock bottom. Shattering the iconic images the public once knew. Britney has been experimenting with S&M imagery long before Gaga even had a career. The video’s concept is pretty blatant, unlike Gaga’s which have many different meanings. It’s clear that the video is somewhat of Britney acknowledging her past, but also moving on from it and embracing who she used to be. Conceptually, this video is her best next to 2003’s “Everytime”.
Nonny says
‘Crap! We forgot to do a GaGa dance-routine! Quick!’
Because nobody ever danced in a music video before Gaga came along, least of all Britney Spears.
So annoying how this site seems to love Gaga so much these days. Where’s the bitterness? I’m going to Pajiba…
Liam says
How the f**k is this even close to what lady gaga has done? Only the advertisements, when if you saw the video on MTV you’ll see they are not there. All these have something her past videos have done, and go suck gaga’s d*ck because obviously your one of her worshipers.
TheLordJesusChrist says
liam, go kill yourself. You are a worthless piece of shit that doesn’t deserve to live.
Dontjudge says
I think people need to stop comparing gaga to every damn pop artist. Especially Britney. Hello!!! Britney was here first and gaga isn’t the first to do crazy. Get real newbies.
Jim says
It’s a very rare occasion to find someone on the web who’s doing freeze frames to try and discern meaning out of a music video! Very cool! So I’ll offer very sincere props to you for having the curiosity–and taking that time. But if I may, let me tell you a story which challenges your apparent certainty about what you’ve seen:
There’s a nightclub I’ve been going to recently which just started projecting music videos in addition to playing the songs. At an 80’s night on Sunday, they played Olivia Newton John’s “Physical”. I had a vague memory of seeing the video when I was extremely young. Don’t know your age or awareness of that, so I’ll repost it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWz9VN40nCA
So I laughed at how silly it was, and remarked to some friends that when I saw that video when it came out… I assumed she was just really excited about advocating exercise. (Bear in mind, in elementary schools there were even these gym programs with similar messages, competitions for the “Presidential Physical Fitness Commendation” or something.) As a young child almost completely aware of sex, the innuendo of “there’s nothing left to talk about, unless it’s horizontally” would have been totally lost on me, if I could even have heard such a sentence properly. Decades ago all I could grok was the chorus and people working out.
As Kurt Vonnegut might say: “So it goes.”
Thus I’ll offer that in this video–at your level of current perception–there may be all kinds of dots you aren’t connecting. You appear to see no relationship between Britney’s participation in an Internet dating site, and her ballooning character falling down. The video is just a collage of random shots…not a coherent narrative. I imagine that you’d quickly assume that PlentyOfFish’s appearance is the by-product of a payoff from a legitimate dating website, as opposed to an embedded lesson about taking such sites seriously. (Plenty of Fish… maybe you’re the fish… is being a fish a good thing? “Our only wish is…to *serve man*…”)
Naivete comes in all forms. To this day there are people who–on a film set–will run back to the truck when the director of photography sends you there for a bag of F-Stops and look for them. Or perhaps when tech support identifies that your issue is an ID-10-T error, there are those who would report to other people that’s what it was (!) I remember when I first saw hacker websites where they’d put slick animated ads from major companies like McDonalds right up front, because average people *can’t conceive* putting an unpaid ad on an illegitimate site to make it look more officially corporate…
Upshot: I can almost assure you that I “see” things in this video that you aren’t yet in touch with. Part of that is just basic film school experience, another part is my peculiar life experience. Yet it’s like any other kind of literacy: being able to read English gives one a better shot at understanding a piece of literature than not being able to read…it’s not a guarantee.
I still suggest you keep working up Bloom’s Taxonomy. “Remember” may only be the first step, but it’s the first step on a journey of many more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom's_Taxonomy
Best,
–J^2TRaeP