Britney Spears has still never received her full due in so many respects (even Paris Hilton has been heralded as a “businesswoman” in the present), but one thing she undeniably did help reinvigorate interest in was Mars. Before Elon Musk came along to steal the concept for Lana Del Rey’s “Love” video, Britney was infiltrating our consciousness with the concept behind 2000’s lead single from the album of the same name, “Oops…I Did It Again!,” directed by her then go-to–his services wouldn’t be required post-00–Nigel Dick (he’s British, such a perverse name is to be expected).
As the premier source for behind-the-scenes knowledge of a music video creation’s back in the day, MTV’s Making the Video gave us an outline of the origins behind the narrative’s intention, which was to paint Britney as the ruler of Mars upon a rather asinine astronaut’s arrival into the planet’s orbit. Blown away by her Barbarella-inspired looQue (though, in Britney’s then youthful and naive mind, it was meant to be motivated by Elizabeth Hurley as Vanessa Kensington in Austin Powers), the astronaut even goes so far as to, in another dated reference, travel all the way to the bottom of the ocean to bring Britney back the Hope Diamond. “Ah, you shouldn’t have,” she shrugs, in a manner that drives home the point of just how evolved this song is for not only Britney, but for the year 2000. Because it presupposes that women don’t have to be interested in a man simply because he’s interested in her. A notion that still somehow remains anathema to most women who feel obligated to return vague signs of affection because it is “expected.”
Throughout the filming of the video, Dick himself makes jibes at the irrelevancy of the men in Britney’s orbit (maybe that’s why his director’s chair reads: “You have to be a DICK to sit in this chair”). The very nature of the song accents the idea that men and their so-called hearts are but playthings to be manipulated to a girl’s advantage. Clearly something Grimes is all too aware of in whatever her as of yet unknown motive is for dating Elon Musk, who not so coincidentally started his pursuit of gathering together the materials to “carry loads” onto Mars just a year after the video for “Oops…I Did It Again!” was released.
In fact, Musk faintly resembles (in body and mind) Eli Swanson, the actor playing the primary astronaut enamored with Britney–who represents a prime example of Dick’s meathead casting approval as he quips, “Just another Earth man with a wobbly head,” in the meanwhile giving Britney her acting incentive with the encouragement, “You’re the queen of Mars. This is your city. These are your subjects.” And treat them as such she does, the red catsuitted commander of an assemblage of mere servants to her aesthetic and whims (of which she has many). Case in point of this comes when the muscular, prop-like men ask Dick, “Are we looking at anything?” as they proceed to wield their “machinery” in a strictly-for-eye-candy fashion, with Dick returning, “No, you’re completely mindless.” And so they are, for it’s Britney’s planet and others are just living in it.
Once shooting is completed on the video, it is left to Dick and his post-production associate/video compositor, Nathan McGuinness, to bequeath the look of the visuals with as much of an extraterrestrial touch as possible. When it’s at last in the final cut phase, Dick declares, “Britney Spears’ new video: we have been to Mars and back.” Elon Musk still hasn’t been able to say as much.
Opening with a screen that assures us, “Entering Mars’ orbit,” a programmer from down below demands, “Earth to Mars lander, report status please.” The status of this poor little astronaut is that he has no idea whose planet he’s about to tango with. As Dick puts it, “He discovers that Mars is not the uninhabited planet that we’ve been led to believe by the conspiracy theorists of many years. In fact Mars is populated by the one and only Britney Spears, which is Britney’s real home, not Louisiana… the astronaut arrives on Mars and there’s Britney and she plays with his heart a bit.” Please god let this happen to Musk when he finally lands there. If for no other reason than to free Grimes from his clutches.
