Oops, I Did It Again
Yes, it's Britney. Let's look a little deeper.
This song popped into my head after I went down the feminist rabbit hole and didn’t get to bed until 4am, when I needed to wake up just after 7. It’s a fun song but as I was listening to it by watching the video, a few things struck me.
First off, this is a song from the Max Martin canon. Dude knows how to craft a catchy tune. The thing that struck me was how this is a man’s conception of a woman leading a guy on. Martin said he intended this to be his version of Barbra Striesand’s Woman in Love however that song is a heartfelt ballad while this song is about a woman being either a tease or very confused.
Oops, I did it again to your heart
Got lost in this game, oh, baby
Oops, you
Think that I'm sent from above
I'm not that innocent
I do love that the song addresses how young men tend to put women up on pedestals and she refuses to stay there. What I find problematic is this idea of I made you believe we're more than just friends however the song has no details. Did she make him believe that or did he choose to believe that?
There’s a spoken word section near the end of the song where the guy indicates that he’s gone to great lengths to retrieve something she lost. She tells him he shouldn’t have but there is a sense that she’s supposed to reward him for doing this even though she didn’t ask him to, thus she’s a tease. This plays into a narrative that has been very scary for women.1
As for the video, the concept was hers. She wanted to be on Mars, dancing on Mars, and wanted to be in a red jumpsuit. British music video director Nigel Dick and choreographer Tina Landon helped her realize her vision. Unfortunately for her, the shoot wasn’t fun. She needed four stitches in her head after a camera’s matte box fell off during an overhead shot and fell on her. She got stitched up, rested 4 hours, and finished the shoot even though her mother who was on set suspected she had a concussion.2
MTV was there creating a Making The Video episode that is very enlightening.
Enjoy your song of the day!
This get acted out in the video - apparently it’s a reference to the movie Titanic.
Yet another example of how the music industry used her up.
Thanks for the write-up. I found the whole Britney _thing_ creepy at the time, and I appreciate people going back and taking *her* seriously and trying to separate out her experience from the Britney Spears marketing.
Also, I was just listening to the Richard Thompson cover, which is fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WGsMplGxU