Britney's Video Catalog Volume Eight: Circus

I am a little behind on my Britney videos due to my attendance of the concert being a bit touch and go last week. Luckily, I will be seeing the fine Ms. Spears this week. Hooray. To get caught up, I watched the videos from Ms. Spears with my mother which proved to be as entertaining as it sounds

"Womanizer"
 I was a little worried about watching these with my mom because Britney can be a little over
the top in the sexy department and we are beginning our first video with Britney nude in a sauna. Great. We start with cuts between Britney as a loyal house wife and her wriggling around nude and looking entirely slippery like a naked Barbie in a pool and her playing an attention starved housewife. In one nude shower shot, my mom thought Britney's sensual posing looked more like she was smelling her armpit than anything. We have a dance montage where Britney is a slutty office lady undercover to seduce her man. She wears a terrible wig. Then Britney plays a trashy cocktail waitress that my mom thought looked like Debbie Gibson. Another bad wig but this one in Cherry Cola. This scene escalates into what my mom called "an orgy in the restaurant". Then we have our last disguise with Britney as a chauffeur which my mom and I agreed was her best look. The video ends with Britney being all three temptresses and her having the ability to cover a man with a blanket and make him disappear. Would that have been handy if it were real? Mom and I agreed this video was terrible.

"Circus"
Before we started the video, my mom made the following predictions of what we would see:

• Boobs but not fully uncovered, just 3/4 exposed
• Bulbous butt in tight pants or skirt
• She would be wet
• Flippy hair that she described as "more flippy that Willow Picket-Smith"
• She would caress her lips with her finger
• "Genital undulations"

 Instead, we began the video with product placement for her perfumes and Bulgari earrings. The video is pretty literal. She is doing dance numbers in a circus. Britney looks good and the video is fairly boring. There is a cute elephant that shakes his head and most of my mom's predictions were fairly wrong.

"If U Seek Amy"
 The video starts with a fake PSA that explains the title of the song which I described to my mom before hand. She got it right away. We start the video which begins in a trashy party with panties and post coital nudging and I instantly realize this was a terrible idea to watch Britney Spears video with my mom. The first half of the video is Britney walking around what my mom described as a "heroin den". She has raccoon eyes but eventually she makes a transformation into what I think is "Amy" and my mom described as a Sandra Dee reference when raccoon Britney dons a perfect 1950s outfit with Marilyn Monroe wig and serves pie the paparazzi.  It doesn't make much sense but my mom described it as Britney being herself but then representing what America wants to see her as (perfect wife and mother). This video is terrible and the song is dumb and I really hope she doesn't play it on Wednesday.

"Radar"
By this point the videos were getting boring. My mom kept making jokes about this song being about some MASH character. The video is more tame than the others with Britney ending up at a polo match of her clean cut rich lover and falling for a more bad boy polo player from the other team except that you really can't be a bad boy if you are playing polo. So really the main difference between the two men is that the "bad boy" has very textured haircut. The video likes to use the care of horses as a mode of communicating sensuality (tight shots of slow braiding of a horses mane and of a horse being sprayed with water in slow motion) which is really uncomfortable. Britney includes another perfume placement and this video is entirely forgettable. (SPOILER ALERT: She chooses the "bad boy")

"Kill the Lights"
 This video was entirely animated and was a waste of my mental capacity. Basically Britney flies around in what mom said was a "flying fingernail" or "giant candy corn" to avoid the paparazzi. At one point, Mom muttered "it's so bad" under her breath. She was right. The video is linked below but you shouldn't watch it. 

Recap: "Circus" was the best and "Kill the Lights" the worst. "Womanizer" made me the most uncomfortable and "Radar" was the most forgettable. "If You Seek Amy" was creepy and silly and the worst thinly veiled commentary. What did I learn from this? Britney Spears' music videos are uncomfortable to watch with your mom even if your mom is a really good sport.