Even though Britney Spears has a much better knack than Ariana Grande for creating simple music videos that transcend into something iconic (e.g. “…Baby One More Time” and “Toxic”), the latter’s latest is actually something that could’ve been pulled straight from a Spears song. Specifically the 2016 single from Glory, “Slumber Party.” Where Britney bypassed the more literal approach of a conventional “girls’ night” filled with the stuff of male fantasy (you know, sexy lingerie as pajamas, champagne pouring and a bathtub filled with bubbles), Ariana opted to use Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion as her “classic sleepover” besties for the remix video (because Miley and Lana are apparently just too… vanilla for her now).
A far cry from her Austin Powers shtick in the original, Ariana and her crew still exude fembot vibes in this Stefan Kohler-directed outing (or “inning,” as it were). Pointedly opening on two swans (for everyone knows they mate for life, and can make their own sordid position–a heart shape–with those necks) swimming in the pool, the camera reveals Ari, Doja and Megan languishing on the chaise lounges as they read what seem to be some random 70s-era magazines. Clearly, the trio is benefitting from the fact that no one is vacationing in these times, with the entire hotel to themselves (either that, or it’s simply because they’re rich and can afford to rent out an entire joint).
Looking like an ad for Dolls Kill meets Fenty X Savage, they revel in writhing on a bellman cart in between reclining on the staircase (given the Bridgerton treatment with an overhead shot that somehow reminds one of Daphne getting eaten out on the stairs by Simon) in their “nightwear” (obviously worn as “daywear” too). About a minute into the video, they’re finally back in their own room as Megan applies another coat of makeup and Doja delivers her rap verse while perched on a fainting couch with a Dalmatian in front of her (who seems to be rather quizzical about why he’s there).
With the nonstop barrage of imagery featuring the trinity in their underthings, comparisons to the 2001 video for “Lady Marmalade” might be the go-to (except that was a quartet), but when it comes to what the visuals conjure in terms of lyrical evocations, it’s strictly “Slumber Party.”
Wanting to allude to the fact that having sex all night can make a girl hungry, Ariana offers a pause in the song reminiscent of another 00s pop culture moment: when Drew Barrymore as Dylan from Charlie’s Angels (a movie Grande is all too familiar with) orders three burgers and three sets of fries from the drive-thru and then turns to her other two angels to ask, “What do you guys want?”
So it is that Ari clicks on the intercom button to hear, “In-room dining. How may I help you?” She replies, “Hi, um, it’s Ari and Meg and Doja. We were just wondering if we could order a couple of things if that’s okay.” “Absolutely.” “Oh thank you so much. Um, could we please get some champagne and some French fries… Do you have, like, desserts?” “Yes ma’am.” “Do you have those flaming ones?” “Excuse me?” “The ones that go on fire–what are they called?” she calls out urgently to the others. Of course, this answer will come later to conclude the night.
The song then cuts back in and they’re at it again with drinking champagne as Megan finally gets her solo moment with a different kind of bubbles in the bathtub. Again, this harkens back to the Britney lyric, “Let’s fill up this clawfoot bath with bubbles/Loving me so hard it’s causing trouble/If there’s seven minutes in heaven make it double, triple/Like a slumber party.”
While the theme of the video is ostensibly “hoes before bros,” Megan reminds that they could all very well be biding time until a dick appointment, ahem, arises as she raps, “Bitch let me get cute, he’s about to come through.” Britney’s suggestion in “Slumber Party” also alluded to a “gentleman” staying the night, therefore each song more than slightly turns the innocent notion of a “girls’ slumber party” on its ear (or perhaps ass, in this instance).
Making “home movies” of themselves (the kind perfectly tailored to OnlyFans), they continue to fuck around in the spirit of Spears’ depiction, “We use our bodies to make our own videos/Put on our music that makes us go fuckin’ crazy, go/Go crazy, go/Like a slumber party.” And when they’re done, they sit down in front of the vintage TV (look out for a comeback of this style at Urban Outfitters) provided for them and watch what they’ve created like the unabashed narcissists that girls can be when it comes to taking in their appearance.
And so, even though Britney did not take this approach for her own visual premise in 2016, it’s quite easy to imagine the “34+35” remix video being soundtracked by her crooning, “I think I see confetti from this potion/Pillow fights and feathers, overdosin’/Smells like a cologne and candy lotion/Like a slumber party/Sheets all on the floor just like an ocean…”
As the credits roll, we see the trio passed out on said ocean of sheets as a phone rings in the background. And then the final scene: Ari remembering the name of that flaming dessert. She asks, “Baked Alaska. Do you guys have baked Alaska?” The man responds, “Oh I’m sorry ma’am, we actually just ran out.” Ari, at first crushed, but then accepting of her fate, says, “Fuck. Okay.” So yeah, surely that dessert is about to have an upswing in popularity (and hopefully not the neo-Nazi “activist” who goes by the same nickname). Along with plenty of lingerie-clad sleepovers as part of just another way in which staying home (though, sadly, not at a hotel) has become the “sexiest” thing a person can do in this new era.
