It’s quite apropos that a song about a man “in the industry” abusing his power should possess a video with such overt aesthetic nods to the Britney Spears canon. To be fair, of course, Billie Eilish can always play the “I was too young to even be aware of that reference” card, but why would she not want to assert some palpable Spears influence here? For no one knows about such abuse of power in the music business better than the original Princess of Pop (before pop came to be a catch-all term for whatever people like Eilish at the top of the charts wanted to put out).
In 2001, Britney was starting to shed more of the “purity” that people wanted her to keep “embodying” from her debut album era (even though a singer whose first charting song was tailored to a sexy Catholic school girl motif shouldn’t have been paraded as a source of “virtue” to begin with). Her third record, Britney, was timed perfectly to coincide with the release of her first movie, Crossroads. While the record was released in October of ’01, the film wouldn’t come out until mid-February (when all the “reject movies” tend to be slapped in theaters). But that didn’t mean “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman” couldn’t be promoted in early January to help bolster enthusiasm for Crossroads’ arrival.
Millennials will remember the famous scenes of Britney amid the distinctive milieu of Antelope Canyon in Page, Arizona and Alstrom Point, Utah as she belts out her dilemma of not being a girl, yet also not being a woman (even though that’s like the best “existential crisis” a female can have). And no, trans related “jokes” about that “in-between” phase are no longer tolerated. As the Wayne Isham-directed video offers us plenty of fast-paced shots of Britney intermixed with “thoughtful close-ups,” she belts, “I’m not a girl, don’t tell me what to believe/I’m just tryna find the woman in me.” All while wearing her signature 00s attire of a crop top and ultra low-rise jeans.
Billie might essentially be declaring the same thing with her sophomore album, but she’s certainly not wearing any form-fitting garb to make that statement—as was once common to do when teen pop stars wanted to be seen as “mature” after catering for a couple albums to the tween set. Yet if any song was pandering to that demographic on Britney, it was this one, offering the empowering message, “This girl will always find her way” while suggestively walking within the vaginal fold-like interior of the canyons. In point of fact, the various suggestive shots of the interior canyon are angled “just so” to look decidedly labia-esque—with the light that “bursts through” easily interpretable as the “orgasm” that comes with discovering true womanhood. Just saying.
Ironically, however, this was still the period when Britney was trying to live down her use of a phallic yellow Burmese python during her now legendary debut performance of “I’m A Slave 4 U” at the 2001 VMAs. One that Billie herself seemed to want to one-up with the massive anaconda (try not to think of the lyrics to “Baby Got Back”) in “Your Power,” which she, once again, directed. Instead of Arizona, Eilish kept it local by heading north of L.A. to Simi Valley, where canyons aplenty allow her to wield her own pointed metaphor about a phallic entity suffocating her air supply as it wraps around her—and just about every other girl in the music industry and beyond. What’s more, the idea that a man’s entire sense of “power” stems from his accursed penis only adds to the double entendre of the visual. One that Britney preferred to write off as nothing more than a snake when questioned about it by the likes of Oprah. But the pop stars who came after her have known that it’s no taboo to simply embrace the symbolism (this includes Taylor Swift, who preferred to maneuver it for her Reputation era as the mark of a poisonous, traitorous being like then singly fused entity Kimye).
The saccharine nature of the song was what inevitably earned it the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song that year at the Razzies, yet this was not a time when people could appreciate “cheesiness” for its kitsch value (see also: Glitter). Eilish, on the other hand, is notoriously “gritty,” a trait she upholds for the lyrical content of “Your Power,” which many believe is about “Q,” her now ex-boyfriend frequently featured in The World’s A Little Blurry. Yet he is but a synecdoche for most “older men” and their inherently predatory behavior as she accuses, “You played the part/But you ruined her in a year/Don’t act like it was hard/And you swear you didn’t know/No wonder why you didn’t ask/She was sleepin’ in your clothes/But now she’s got to get to class.” That fact should be a boner killer to men, but instead seems only to continue to entice them with their centuries-long “Lolita indoctrination.” And yeah, even Lana Del Rey—Eilish’s unofficial mentor—got brainwashed with that trope. It would seem Billie is determined to break the cycle, however, of young women thinking that skeevy behavior is not only “fine,” but venerable.
Eilish, being known for making simple videos and adding an extended moment of “shock value” (see also: “when the party’s over” and “xanny”), builds on that trend here with the snake. Britney, too, has a similar modus operandi (one that has worked for her far better than it has for Ariana Grande). And, tellingly, Spears’ continued far-reaching influence on the music video scene is indicated by the also recent rip-off of “Oops!…I Did It Again” that is Doja Cat and SZA’s “Kiss Me More” video.
As for Eilish’s own neo-“I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman,” she plays it even more staid and dramatic. These are not, as you may know, the aughts. Therefore anything “bathetic” is usually deemed pathetic. Granted, there is a moment when Brit is perched atop a cliff like it’s Pride Rock and she’s ostensibly contemplating suicide; one couldn’t understand just how resonant these scenes of Britney in nature would become once we grew to know her environment as being solely within the confines of her San Fernando Valley abode. Billie, too, seems to lead a life that takes place primarily among four walls in Los Angeles. Her mind’s landscape the only “portal to the outside world” that her creativity really needs. Which makes sense for both women, being fellow Sagittarians with therefore decidedly “emo” qualities.
While Eilish is nineteen (compared to Spears’ twenty-two at the time of “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman” being unleashed) and might, apparently, not have much aesthetic trail left to blaze (hence this very similar vibe to Britney), just because she hasn’t changed up the literal landscape of Antelope Canyon and Alstrom Point very much doesn’t mean “Your Power” isn’t set to change a lot of things about the proverbial predator’s landscape.
