Have you heard her song Work B**ch? Without the video music stands as an anthem for working your way up higher and higher reaching out for the ecstasy and thrill, reaching for power and respect. Doing it on your own with what you have got with terms of your own, but in a world that also has certain kinds of terms and desires of its own and you have to know them. The video for the song does not differ from mainstream pop video. It is also an anthem for a lifestyle and what I find interesting there is the desire that is on display, desire of a girl and a woman, desire of a customer, a buyer, a client and a viewer to whom it is told that this is the world of business, act accordingly, know it to get the things you want. Because we are things who want things (there is a hint of criticism). Our world is a desert, which we make, world of things. How via supply and demand our world works, how knowing the game the making it works. Supply and a kind of an eternal answer is delivered like a package, a ready-made without any criticism that there might be something flawed in the picture. Why would we not want the same?

That there is no self-criticism or desire to walk away from a rip off world, criticism against having-it-all-lifestyle (because it is self-evidently good and right and what else is there) against the means of having it all is purely the way of today’s market. Message of this piece of music is heavy with images of girls working it, making it thinking they are in control, creating and delivering in terms of their own. Yes it is body of theirs, it is desire of theirs searching to match desires of well paying customers. Everybody is happy. Britney whipping her dancers to work it to make it. Yes it is work, but what do we want to make? Britney has been in business for quite a long time. She has got something that is worth all the money.

Her appearance is big part of her image. It is possibly the most important part in the package; even more important than music? There are many fixed ideas what Britney Spears stands for (or is it her that does the standing for something, I don’t know). For what I know she is not a singer-songwriter, but a performer of music made for her. She was somehow forced into a teenage pop stardom now wanting to be naughtier but still to be a product, so she does not escape her set frame at all. Diminished into a tight spot as a performer with little clothing, dance moves, videos, beats of music, interviews and gossip. She is a modern day freak now in Las Vegas. It is a tempting idea to laugh at her and she has been laughed at. Her intellect is questioned, but that happens to all women. All this sounds sad. The whole concept of pop stardom sounds sad and strictly framed. It is even more sad as we know that people seriously search for to do exactly what Britney does and is made to do.

Social dimension to Britney there are many. Surely some of her persona comes through, I think,, that she is a product of a sexist society that cherishes women to behave in a certain way and to get things in a certain way. Certain kind of womanhood is sexy and interesting for too many. To have it all instead of doing it yourself is a capitalist plan. We need to have all of the things that create respect for us, create an aura of possessing. How to DIY without sinking in to an industry that dictates most of the rules is difficult. Most of the world is dictated by big money industries and we like to see them as good job creators, star makers. Wealth is still the most luring dream there is and the search of riches makes the world go round.
in addition:
I claim if Britney Spears was allowed to be herself, her work would be hugely much more interesting. Interesting is, what is stopping her from actually being something else in front of us than what she now is doing and showing herself to be.