Well, now we’ve got it and we're reflecting on it. The HIAM video. And of course the Britney fanbase is in celebratory mood. Compared to the video for “3” it’s a masterpiece. Yep, this is exactly what everyone was hoping for, and all of Adam Leber’s little teasing excerpts were a wonderful PR idea and fully justified by the climactic, orgiastic, poptastic final product..... uhhh, right. I was daydreaming there, and I just woke up.
Personally? I love the video. There, I said it. Send for the men in the white coats. Inject me with sodium pentathol but I’ll still say it. Visually, it’s stunning. Anyone who says it’s not is just biased and has a jaundiced attitude. Britney looks beautiful throughout. And it’s crammed full of images and imagery of many kinds. Naaman at SBUK, a very intelligent and perceptive fan, explains it like this:
“She's charting her career from the beginning, firstly with showing all the early videos in the background and her rising in that dress, representing her "rise" to stardom. Then she has an inner struggle/breakdown, represented by the fight with herself, and as a result of the breakdown her career/image is tainted (represented by the paint being splashed over her early videos, and her marriage breakdown by the wedding dress being ruined). Then at the end, it seems she kind of makes peace with herself (they both lie down together after the fight), and she comes back brand new and stronger with the final dance scene.” He could also have mentioned the Britney phenomenon exploding into Planet Earth like a meteor in the opening scene.
It is all of that, and does all of that. If it was a GaGa video, everyone would be raving about its freshness, inventiveness, boldness and fierceness and dropping to their knees to worship her once again as the savior of pop and the biggest and best thing to happen to it in the last and next 25 years. Yes, they actually do say that. But this is Britney Spears, the woman who pleases half of her fans most of the time and displeases the other half all of the time. It wouldn’t be Britney if it wasn’t Disappointment Central.
I guess a lot of these people were watching for one thing, and one reason only. To confirm or otherwise that Britney is still the same quality product they began to love and support all those years ago. They don’t want to think that they were fooled, or had somehow deluded themselves in their childish naivety. The one and the ONLY thing that mattered about this video was - Britney’s dancing. Was she back to dancing like she used to? Could they breathe a sigh of relief and say “There. Bitch still got it”?
I don’t know what they were expecting. Brian Friedman didn’t get it wrong, because it IS a dance video. It’s definitely NOT a story video, like Toxic or Womanizer. It all takes place on a dazzling high-tech stage set. There IS dancing in every scene. And did Britney dance as horribly as some of these depressive fans are suggesting? I don’t think so. When I’m assessing a piece of dancing, I watch the performer’s FEET, and she was using them. A lot of her rivals are body-dancers and barely move their feet other than to make a few simple steps.
In the early days before the video launch, a “Body double” conspiracy theory was advanced by Perez Hilton and supported by dancer Allison Kyler - but it was a complete crock. The haters, Brit-cynics and conspiracy theorists were all ready to go “Sure the dancing’s great BUT IT’S NOT HER!” Then they were saying Allison must be delighted that they didn’t use her as a body double because the dancing’s so shockingly, unbelievably, dreadfully, inconceivably awful. (That’s a crock too, by the way.) And the latest thing is that they're now back to saying it WAS a body double. So Britney isn't to blame for the bad dancing.... right?
But anyway. It could be said with some justification that Friedman’s and Leber’s promises exceeded any possible reality, but basically we’ve now arrived at a point where EVERYTHING she does disappoints half the broader fanbase. I can’t remember the last time some of these folks actually gave their wholehearted approval to ANYTHING she’s done. OK, divided opinions are
inevitable and healthy, but the violence and bitterness of the negativity on one side of the debate, and the overheated levels of anger and disillusion, seem totally disproportionate to reality.
What the HELL is with these rantings extrapolated from a four minute video that she is "obviously bored”, “doesn’t care about her career or the fans” and if she isn’t willing to put herself out there and promote the hell out of herself “like GaGa or Rihanna” she should stop making music altogether? IN-EFFING-SANE!
And yet again we get the regulation “she looks dead in the eyes” meaningless comment, which is as dumb and nonsensical now as it always is. I’ve looked and looked at this video to TRY and see what the EFF they’re talking about, and to me she’s looking directly and intensely at the camera in every scene. Hell, she looks FIERCE in the opening scenes. Couldn’t be FARTHER from “dead in the eyes”. OK, I guess her make up artist made her eyes look half closed and COULD have chosen to make them look rounder and bigger. But I think we can take it that that wasn’t what the director wanted.
Here we have a lovingly, intricately made music video, full of impact and imagery and meaning. It’s PERFECTLY good, even by high standards. Non-fans (who aren’t haters) won’t be screaming in agony and tearing at their eyeballs when it’s shown on TV. A whole nauseating miasma of anguish and despair has been built up out of some eye make-up choices, the fallacy of trying to draw solid conclusions from freeze-framing something that's moving too fast to freeze, and dancing that’s actually better than people have been giving it credit for.
But my enjoyment and admiration have been tainted and almost derailed by this tidal wave of loony, misguided, biased witterings. I will try my best not to let it happen again.
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