Originally intended to be a solo track instead of a duet, Madonna jumped on vocals for Britney Spears’ lead single for In the Zone, “Me Against the Music,” to capitalize on the heat generated from their famed VMA performance in August of ’03. As such, it was slightly overt that, in doing so, it was somewhat problematic considering lyrics like, “It’sme against the music, it’s just me” being accommodated for Madonna with the addition of her saying, “And me.” So already, from the first line, listeners are effortlessly slipped into the mindframe of a schizophrenic. For it feels as though Madonna’s voice is the one Britney is falsely hearing in her head. Or, likewise, the one she’s allowed to insert it with thoughts or feelings not necessarily her own, engaging in the passivity phenomenon many schizophrenics surrender to.
Although the video itself appears to depict Britney having a typical night out for her 00s era persona, showing up to a warehouse club in a car that she shoddily parks, as the narrative, directed by Paul Hunter, goes on, the tone feels more unpropitious, as though Madonna’s ominous voyeurism (manifested in the form of her both watching Britney on a screen and herself being projected onto multiple screens as she watches Britney) is the imagined presence inside the chanteuse’s fraught tête.
Britney, however, seems primarily unbothered, more concerned with dancing off the calories from that strategically placed Sbarro item. And yet, when she’s not frantically trying to shake some spirit within (i.e. Madonna), she’s stalking after M’s spectral ubiquity, always just within reach, but never quite touchable. Probably because it isn’t real and Britney is mirroring the signs of her then imminent breakdown.
Even so, just as she has to keep on dancing to stave off too much depth of thought, so, too, must she continue to pursue M throughout the entire video, a grand allegory for some sinister being in the not so far away corners of her mind. Madonna herself is blithe in taunting Britney–just as most mental illness is of setting up residence quite comfortably in someone’s head.
The allusion to Britney “feeling something there” throughout also reaches a crescendo in the iconic wall barrier dancing scene, in which Madonna seems to serve as the Us-like tether to Britney’s movements. The duo’s partitioned dance-off (one must remember that if it was the early 00s, a dance-off was always required) also symbolizes Britney’s greater need to please, using a more bombastic set design (some neon graffiti backdrop) and more backup dancers to impress, while Madonna–cool, calm and collected–gyrates about in random yoga poses amid men smoking cigars (it’s a bit like the “Open Your Heart” video in that way). Or mucks about in some fall leaves with a swing in her midst (almost a subtle homage to “From the Bottom of My Broken Heart”). In the meantime, Britney continues to latently struggle with this purling essence hovering just above.
Madonna pulling out a pocketwatch at one point also doesn’t appear to bode well, as though she’s ticking off the minutes before she, as the embodiment of insanity, reaches her full peak inside Britney’s head. The latter then chases her through the crowd in the warehouse, the decrepit wood beams casting strange light as she is left only with a cane as evidence of M’s existence. In fact, this isn’t the only occasion where fashion and accessory accoutrements remain the sole trace of Madonna potentially being real, with another moment finding Britney in possession of her abandoned white blazer.
To further heighten the mentally ill vibes, we suddenly find Britney and Madonna writhing around an old, creepy bed frame in a dingy room that looks like it once belonged to an involuntarily checked in patient. Is Madonna really there—or is Britney’s schizophrenia being kicked into high gear after being taunted with, “Hey Britney, you say you wanna lose control/Come over here I got something to show ya/Sexy lady, I’d rather see you bare your soul/If you think you’re so hot better show me what you got.” Goaded and driven to the brink of madness before perhaps actually reaching it, Britney continues to try to prove herself, ultimately, to herself. Though there is no better person to try to one-up to surpass normal standards than the benchmark of Madonna. That is, when she doesn’t serve as an analogy for deteriorating psychosis.
What’s more, the hushed maniacal laughter of Britney at the end as Madonna fades away before her eyes doesn’t connote that she made it out of the warehouse doubling as a loony bin with her sanity intact.
