Although neither Madonna nor Britney Spears were tangibly present at the 2024 VMAs, it seemed as though they were everywhere. What with their sartorial and performance style manifested and “repurposed” (read: copied) on many a “next generation” ilk (though let it be known that there will never be a next generation of these two particular pop stars). Whether it was Tate McRae wearing the same red carpet look that Spears did at the 2001 VMAs or Megan Thee Stallion trying to carry off Spears’ live snake-clad ensemble from her “I’m A Slave 4 U” performance from that same year, it was glaringly obvious that the pop universe is clearly still influenced by Spears. Herself influenced by Madonna.
This is precisely why the two joined each other onstage during the 2003 VMAs for an open-mouthed kiss that would eclipse everything else about the performance (including the fact that Christina Aguilera also kissed Madonna and that Missy Elliott showed up at the end). And Carpenter patently wanted to reference that immortal instant so as to create her own “pop culture moment.” Indeed, apart from Chappell Roan, the “it” pop girl who got the most attention for her performance at the VMAs was Carpenter (because, no, Katy Perry did not “serve,” regardless of how blatantly hard she was trying to). Not just for wearing the sample version of Madonna’s signature Bob Mackie dress from the 1991 Oscars, but also for throwing in more than a slight dash of Britney Spears into her act. One that consisted of a medley of Short n’ Sweet’s “Please Please Please,” “Taste” and “Espresso.”
The first song allowed Carpenter to introduce herself on a swing with a seat shaped like a diamond. And while some presently associate the “swing performance” with the likes of Lana Del Rey (always on a swing when she performs “Video Games” live) and Olivia Rodrigo (who appears on a floating crescent moon during a portion of her Guts World Tour), it was Spears who championed the use of swings long ago.
Select audiences might remember her doing so on a giant umbrella (using the handle as her seat) during The Circus Starring Britney Spears, but it all started with the intro to the video for “From the Bottom of My Broken Heart,” during which Spears is perched on a tire swing outside her house before delving into her tale of woe about losing her first true love. Then, in the “Lucky” video (released a year later in 2000), Spears also appears atop a giant star overlooking Hollywood. Although it’s not a swing, it still has that suspended-in-mid-air-in-a-decadent-manner effect. Which is exactly what Carpenter gives off as she commences with the earnest entreaty, “Please please please/Don’t prove I’m right” (even though all a Taurus really wants is to be proven right). And yes, the confetti dropping from the ceiling above her also echoed the confetti falling in “Lucky” (some of which Spears herself doles out as though she’s blessing some gay event). An overt sign that Carpenter loves details when it comes to an homage.
And, if that reference to Brit was too subtle, Carpenter is certain to lay it on thick as she descends onto the stage (like she’s “sent from above”) while a specific audio portion of “Oops!…I Did It Again” plays in the background. You know, the one where Spears tells the astronaut we see in the accompanying video, “But I thought that the old lady dropped it into the ocean in the end.” Carpenter leaves out the part where he replies, “Well, baby, I went down and got it for you,” but keeps in Britney’s cooing response, “Aw, you shouldn’t have.” This said as an astronaut of Carpenter’s own approaches her from behind while she commences “Taste.”
Of course, astronauts also give a nod to the fact that the MTV VMAs offer up awards in the form of “Moonmen,” which became “Moon Person” circa 2017. So sure, astronauts work on several levels for Carpenter’s purposes. As does the alien who then materializes onstage with her to create the kind of complicated love triangle she’s alluding to on “Taste” (side note: her inspirations for the track, Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello, were also performers that night). An alien that Spears herself commented on in one of her many awkward Instagram videos as she noted, “Why is she kissing an alien onstage? I adore her. I love her to death. I didn’t understand that part. Why didn’t she kiss a girl?”
This question was an obvious reference to another one of her illustrious VMA moments—the abovementioned instance when she locked lips with Madonna during their performance of “Like A Virgin/Hollywood” with Christina Aguilera. Indeed, Spears is known for throwing shade while hiding behind the mask of “compliments” (as she did when she decided to wear her own new riff on the Versace butterfly dress after Blake Lively paraded the original during the premiere of It Ends With Us). Spears has a point, one supposes, with Carpenter already having kissed a girl in the form of Jenna Ortega during the “Taste” video. So perhaps she wanted to mix it up a bit for this particular homage. Even so, Spears declared it, “…weird. But I also thought that the whole thing was kind of weird altogether.”
It only got “weirder” when an entire army of Moonmen came out for Carpenter’s “Espresso” finale, during which Carpenter loosely paid another tribute to Madonna by being lifted up by all those helmeted men in a way that evokes the image of Madonna being picked up by a bevy of football players in the video for “Give Me All Your Luvin’” (an “esoteric” reference to some, but not for those who appreciate its value as the gayest football-related piece of pop culture in existence). But maybe what Spears really means by “weird” is that capitalism simply creates the conditions in which nothing new can ever be done. Especially not now, with all of these TikTok-brained people.
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