I disagree that there is no structure beyond dark/light. First of all the above/below is another structure, secondly there is an intro piece, different kinds of dancing scenes (on the floor, Britney with the guys, Britney with other dancers). Either way, it’s a bit beside the point, your main point about Britney’s role stands and the cataclysm. I just wanted to add those extra psychoanalytical elements to them.

With regards to the subtext, I merely meant to say that it provided a good concept and a thread one could follow throughout the essay. It just seems like a good tool to me.

I do not think there is any one subtext here: There is one about Britney herself, but also one about the calamity, about sex and girls (shaping both male and female), etc. And saying that I guess we part company somewhat on what subtext means. Perhaps I misunderstood when you originally used it. Because I believe that sure, sometimes the artists will have subtexts that they want to broadcast, but a lot of the time it is subconscious, as is the case with the id-ego-super-ego analysis here.

1) I don’t think this video gets closer to sex than Promiscuous. I think they found a cool effect, let’s call it heartbeat dancing, thought it looked good in the video, and used it as much as possible. The whole video is chock full of bodies and sex. You can’t just look at the spectacle, you also have to read into the underlying structure and message. Promiscuous had a build up, the sex wasn’t displayed graphically, but within the context of the song, and with the subtle effects of the singers’ voices getting huskier, the dancers slightly less flashy. On the other hand, in Britney’s video, the only structure to the song is; first they’re dancing in the dark, then they’re in the light.

I think this ties into the calamitous aspect. The media dooms and glooms, we’re going to go through dark nights where there’s nothing you can do but dance, which will turn out not to be the end of the world. So just be happy you’re alive. They’re want the audience to accept less and less of the world and instead just dance.

2) Sure, that could work. I’m not a trained psychologist, so I’m not able to read these patterns terribly well. I put the functional aspect into the Imogen video because the subject matter dealt directly with them.

I don’t think “obviousness” has much meaning when it comes to pop music though. I didn’t use the word “subtext” but that doesn’t mean the subtext isn’t there. Like the previous commenter said, Britney fans aren’t getting any younger. I think the subtextual message is simply, “Girls, I’m still here, I’m doing just fine now and I’m not going away.” Subtext is interesting when you’re trying to hide it, but Britney doesn’t have to, and so it changes to a simple filter that changes the message based on how much you love her. People who aren’t Britney fans are going to read into the video fairly predictably, I was surprised that the first two commenters insisted that Britney was being forced into doing music videos again.

Remember the building blocks of subtext. You have a message you want to deliver to your audience, that you can’t outright say. So you obscure it, delivering it in a way that makes it look like one thing for one group of people, and another to the rest.

Your analysis seems to boil down to two main points, hitting upon the a) cataclysmic events of the video and the b) aspirational/insider-guide role played by Britney.

While I agree with those points, might I suggest some obvious themes that I think are worth recounting?

1) The party is itself set in the sewer. This can be taken as an obvious reference to the id vs. the ego and the superego. Too reinforce this, look at the contrast between Britney, the dancers surrounding her and the mass of human bodies on the ground. This pile of humans is such an obvious sex-reference that it is too blatant not to notice. Contrast this with the dancing in the Nelly video analysed earlier. There the dancers were mimicking sex. In Britney’s video we get one step closer to just depicting sex.

2) Following along this line, we can understand the heavens as the super-ego and the above-ground or skyscrapers as the ego. The ego flees into the id (removing the manholes and climbing down) as the super-ego covers up the sky and fllings fiery condemnation upon it. Specfically, the ego here is the skyscrapers. The super-ego lambasts the ego for some reason (the video doesn’t supply an explanation, which in itself is telling, i.e. “I/we don’t understand what we have done wrong/why I feel guilty”) and the ego flees into the id, hedonism, etc. Note also that Britney begins the video in the sewer, i.e. she is established as having a relationship to the (your) id.

3) Finally, there is a rebirth at 2:35 with first the sunlight and then the water fountains (orgasm, which the coreography up till then has been moving towards). Finally, following the cleasing of the ego by the super-ego, Britney emerges into the new clean world.

Note, by the way, that in the intermission between the sun and the water, we see the dj operating on a very high-tech instrument. Obviously: technology is in the hands of the id even as it has fled the ego. This suggests, like I proposed with regards to Britney, that technology is placed in a close relation to the id.

Britney’s fans have not grown younger. Their idols have moved on, become mature, sensible even. Britney is there to live theisr fantasy of being 21 again. The same repetitive music with not much more merit (subjectic view), the same moves, hell, the prop acting as guys might even be the same. Britney is 2003 revisited. This is what you want from her. Not sex (it’s only a relic from previous fame), not even an ideal-self anymore, you just want things to be like they were. If Britney, after everything can regress back to the early naughties, so can you. Except you can’t, and neither can she. And that’s why the whole charade is so god-awful.

She is you, clinging on to the past, living through the memories. I feel sorry for her. The shoe just doesn’t fit anymore, so she cuts off the toes and the heel and smiles in an antipsychotic-induced emptiness.

Uncanny.

I don’t think Britney looks tired. I think she looks good. Sure, she partied maybe a bit too much and it shows a tiny bit. But so what? I like the way she looks. I like that she doesn’t look 16 any more. Really, she does look 29 to me. If I saw that face at a bar, I would think she’s 26-28. On the screen, she looks maybe 30. The reason there’s a difference between those two numbers is entirely due to the media messing with our heads. I think another reason she maybe seems older is because of the role she’s playing on stage. She’s directing the action. conducting. I don’t think it’s a role we’re used to seeing her in. She’s been the teen sweetheart too long. She started to grow up with In the Zone but now she’s a full on adult, playing grown-up games.

The point is that nelly looks young and britney looks old and tired. Even though britney looks old and tired you wrote a long blog entry about how much fun she is having and how sexy she is. Anyone with eyes can see britney just totally wants to quit show biz but contractual obligations combined with a long history of being conditioned to obey people make it impossible for her to quit. Its really sad.

She is definitely old by pop standards, but she’s not making bubblegum pop anymore as that genre is pretty much dead right now. Only in bubblegum pop do you need to be <23 yrs old.
electro pop ala lady gaga is what they're doing.

Again, you described nelly as "young" when nelly is about 28 in that video and here you describe brit as "old" when she's the same age. I think this does more than prove that britney has a lot of problems and is so not having fun or wanting to do this. People having fun don't look much older than their real age.