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Tag: Britney Spears 2000s

  • War of the Denim Brands Trying to Play Up the 2000s (a More Marked Time of White Supremacy BTW) Instead of “Great Jeans”

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    Ever since Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle got it so wrong with their jeans ad, it’s been a free-for-all of shade-throwing on the ad campaign front. It started with Beyoncé, who released the final installment in her series of Levi’s commercials about two weeks after the American Eagle campaign was unveiled. Though, thanks to the daily rounds of fresh invective, the AE campaign still felt much more recent (especially by modern standards, when anything more than a day old is “old”) when Beyoncé’s Levi’s commercial dropped. Almost as if she (and Levi’s) were purposefully trying to show them “how it’s done.” And yet, even Beyoncé, often deemed as “ironclad” or “bulletproof” on the instant success front as Taylor Swift, didn’t exactly alight the masses with her campaign. Which, perhaps worse than saying something “incendiary,” said nothing much at all. 

    Thus, when Gap emerged with its own “little response” (whether admitting that it was a response or not) to the whole jeans controversy in mid-August, they decided to say it best by saying it with Katseye (don’t worry if you hadn’t heard of them until now) bopping around amongst many other dancers to the tune of Kelis’ signature 2003 hit, “Milkshake.” Which apparently feels as “fresh” and “relevant” to the youths of today as it did to the millennials of yore (particularly after the song cameo’d in 2004’s Mean Girls). And, on a side note, it would seem Kelis takes less issue with the song being used to sell denim than she does with it being used to sell Beyoncé herself. Or, more specifically, her music. For who could forget Kelis’ none too favorable reaction to “Mrs. Carter” sampling “Milkshake” for track four of Renaissance, “Energy”? So unfavorable was the reaction, in fact, that Beyoncé “quietly” just removed the sample the same way she removed the phrase “Spazzin’ on that ass” from “Heated” (replacing it with a perhaps even more suggestive phrase: “Blastin’ on that ass”).

    But there’s nothing “quiet” about the reanimation of “Milkshake” in 2025, the year when the saturation of 00s pop culture has reached an ostensible new apex, even though few thought that could be possible after Euphoria makeup and the remake of Mean Girls in 2024. But no, 2025 is gunning hard for the 00s to come back (even in terms of Lindsay Lohan making her own umpteenth “return” with Freakier Friday, released the same year, incidentally, as “Milkshake”). 

    Ironically enough, however, the 00s were a prime time for white supremacy. Reigning truly “supreme” in that no one was talking about the surfeit of whiteness in media at the time. Or the fact that someone like Jennifer Lopez or Lucy Liu was about as “exotic” as Hollywood was willing to get in film, music or any other entertainment medium. That lack of representation, it was all just accepted. Taken at face value. And this is part of why Sweeney and American Eagle (itself a brand very much associated with the 00s, along with Abercrombie & Fitch) might be the most “authentically” 00s of all in that they unleashed an ad campaign that assumes the presence of a customer mindset that truly is still “locked in” with that era.

    The era when the blonde girl with the “‘hot’ body” (to borrow a phrase from Janis Ian’s [Lizzy Caplan] chalkboard plan on how to take down Regina George) was never to be questioned, made fun of and certainly not accused of promoting white supremacy with a dubious tag line (“Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”) that was paired with an even more suggestive commercial “monologue” (“Genes are passed down to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color… My jeans are blue”).

    Thus, the Katseye x Gap campaign stood out even more by not only calling upon 00s semiotics and sounds, but also adhering to what the tenets of capitalism do best by repackaging what’s old, making it “new” again and selling it back to the masses. And since Gap commercials at their most successful are always known for the “all-white backdrop,” this latest one hit all the right notes of nostalgia. Considering that’s about the only thing everyone can afford to get high on now, it’s being ramped up all the more with each passing year.

    Hence, Addison Rae, a Gen Zer who clearly identifies as a millennial, also getting in on the 00s nostalgia action with her own ad campaign for Lucky Brand Jeans—an ultra 00s-associated brand. Accordingly, Women’s Wear Daily described the jeans she’s promoting as “a reimagined version of a look from Lucky Brand’s early 2000s archive.” What’s more, Addison rolled her sleeves (or is it cuffs in this case?) even further up by actually getting involved in the design process by serving as creative director for this specific line of ultra low-rise flare jeans. That fit, of course, being the pinnacle of 00s-era fashion, with Paris Hilton and Britney Spears exemplifying the trend in the early aughts. 

    As for Addison’s “commercial” (directed by Mitch Ryan), it didn’t go quite as viral as Gap’s (directed by Bethany Vargas, whose most recent credits include the likes of Lady Gaga’s “Abracadabra” video). Though there is still something like “choreo” in the mix after it opens with Addison walking out onto a stage area in her Lucky Brand Jeans as her own song, “High Fashion,” plays (obviously not as instantly recognizable as “Milkshake”). Right from the beginning, the tag line, “Wear Lucky, feel lucky” immediately pops up. And it isn’t lost on any millennial girl that one of Britney’s biggest hits in the early 00s was “Lucky.” Or that she herself was a wearer of Lucky Brand (along with all the other fashion “staples” of the day: Tommy Hilfiger, Abercrombie, Ed Hardy, Juicy Couture, etc.).

    The visual comparison to Britney that “AR” continues to draw was not lost on anyone who has even a cursory knowledge of the 00s. And yet, despite Spears being everyone’s favorite reference, in the denim wars that have taken the U.S. by storm since July, it seems that Katseye is the clear winner of this round. Even if Addison’s campaign has a level of finesse, class and vague freshness beyond the mere regurgitation of a milkshake that boasts, “I know you want it/The thing that makes me/What the guys go crazy for/They lose their minds.”

    And what guys and girls alike are all losing their minds for this year is 00s stylings, whether in the world of fashion or otherwise. Though someone might want to remind them all that this particular decade was nothing if not pro-white supremacy. But try telling that to a generation that’s somehow managed to romanticize George W. Bush a.k.a. make “Bushcore” happen.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Like Everything That “Pays Homage” to 00s Pop Culture, Halsey’s “Lucky” Is A Pale, Unsatisfying Imitation

    Like Everything That “Pays Homage” to 00s Pop Culture, Halsey’s “Lucky” Is A Pale, Unsatisfying Imitation

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    The rollout of Halsey’s “new era” has been almost as rocky as Katy Perry’s. While the latter tried to pass off the Dr. Luke-produced “Woman’s World” as a feminist anthem, Halsey, instead, opted to pass off the second single from her as-of-yet-untitled fifth album, “Lucky,” as an “homage” to Britney Spears, better known as the Queen of the 2000s. And while Halsey was certain to announce of recreating the song/video for Spears’ 2000 hit, “I wouldn’t even dream of doing it without her blessing!,” Spears’ response felt more that slightly “off” if that was truly the case.

    Even so, Spears later updated her stance on the song after deleting the original post, commenting, “Fake news !!! That was not me on my phone !!! I love Halsey and that’s why I deleted it 🌹 !!!” This reply, in all honesty, sounded much more in line with her usual manner of speaking, complete with an emoji usage and lots of exclamation points. In contrast, the original statement came across as too composed and clinical to be the true mark of Spears, with whoever “stole” her phone writing, “For obvious reasons I’m very upset about the Halsey video. I feel harassed, violated and bullied. I didn’t know an artist like her and someone I looked up to and admired would illustrate me in such an ignorant way by tailoring me as a superficial pop star with no heart or concern at all. I have my own health problems which is why I took down my IG account yesterday. I will definitely be putting it back up to show I CARE. I’m speaking with my lawyers today to see what can be done on this matter. It feels illegal and downright cruel.” Rather than sounding like “authentic” Spears, it has the mark of an AI-generated response based on some of her previous soundbites (like when she said during the Piece of Me residency in undercutting reference to her conservatorship, “It feels kind of illegal doing this with this mic in my hand right now, it feels so weird”). But whether Spears was in some way behind the originally expressed sentiment or not, the knee-jerk reaction of contempt is not without its merit. For, so often, attempts at homage not only tend to fall flat, but come across as rather insulting (like Kelly Osbourne covering Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach” back in 2002 or Tina Fey sanctioning the musical-movie version of Mean Girls in 2024).

    From the moment the video opens on a child version of Halsey outside a home of, let’s say, modest appearance, and the 00s-inspired pink font spelling out “Lucky” with a star around the “L” tops it off, it’s obvious that this is going to be uncomfortable to watch. Worse still, as though to play up the “inferior artist imitating a greater one” angle, Halsey tapped Gia Coppola to direct the video. “Child Halsey” then runs to get into a car as the opening line, “I am so lucky” plays. Of course, it’s tinged with a sardonic bent, for there’s nothing that lucky about being relentlessly scrutinized. Something that Britney actually knows much more about than most pop stars, Halsey included. After all, it was because of her being subjected to so many egregious privacy violations in the 00s that a law was passed in California in 2009 that made it “a crime to take and sell unauthorized photos of celebrities in ‘personal or familial activity.’” Few other celebrities can lay claim to paving such a path for basic human rights for celebrities. Obviously, all it cost Britney was her mental health. Indeed, Spears was diagnosed as being bipolar (just as Halsey was) in 2008 and has stated of the condition, “I have always been kind of shy, since I was a little girl. It’s who I am to be modest, so I really can’t help it. I turn into this different person…seriously, bipolar disorder.” The “different person” she turns into for the stage was always difficult to reconcile with the shy girl from the South. And maybe it was the less shy version of herself that lashed out in response to Halsey’s rendering of “Lucky.” A version that tries to take the specific pain of Spears and make it her own.

    And as this version of Halsey’s childhood unfolds, we see a cold, distant father walk into the house while his daughter watches TV—the two scarcely acknowledge one another as the lyric, “Did it all to be included, my self-loathing so deep-rooted” plays in the background. After being ignored (the ultimate parental sin, as confirmed by Allison Reynolds [Ally Sheedy] in The Breakfast Club), she retreats into her poster-filled room. The posters, of course, are of Halsey, styled in Spears-circa-the-00s looks. The girl then puts a load of what is now referred to as “Euphoria makeup” on (even though Euphoria takes its makeup aesthetic from the 2000s), mimicking dance moves that are decidedly pulled from a Spears video (either that, or Madonna’s “Vogue”). The camera then focuses in on one of the Halsey posters so that the Halsey “inside” of it (wearing a sheer, crystal-embellished bodysuit designed to remind viewers of the “Toxic” video) can come to life and parrot the original “Lucky” chorus, switching it up to use the first person point of view instead: “But I’m so lucky, I’m a star/And I cry, cry, cry in my lonely heart, thinkin, ‘If there’s nothin’ missin’ in my life/Then why do these tears come at night?’” Well, maybe they come now because of the ostensible rejection Spears displayed toward this song.

    A crushing blow, considering that Halsey recently stated during a promotional interview for Maxxxine that the defining star for her growing up was “Britney Spears, all day. I didn’t think anyone could be, like, more of a star. I actually don’t know that I even knew at that—I was like six—because I was also born in 1994… But I was, like, I didn’t know that I knew she was a person outside of the CD. I thought she lived in there. And every time I played it, she had to sing.” A “childlike” belief (replicated in making Halsey come to life inside the abovementioned poster) that’s eerily telling of how much Spears was viewed as nothing more than a trained monkey “created” solely to amuse the masses. To dance and sing like a puppet. It was no wonder she started to let loose as the mid-00s progressed, shedding the “good girl” image she was saddled with from the outset of her career. This period is alluded to in Halsey’s video as well, during a moment when she can be seen drunkenly laughing in a nightclub setting before appearing on a red carpet (looking more like 00s-era P!nk than Spears) for “TGI” (the fake music news network modeled after the MTV logo).

    In the next few scenes, the homage front starts to get even messier as Halsey tries to jam-pack a hodgepodge of Britney-in-the-00s-related images into the narrative. This includes getting out of a car and being swarmed by paparazzi, wearing a basketball jersey in the recording studio, being miserable in her fancy house—and this is where the nod to “Everytime” comes in. Because, for whatever reason, Simon Rex is there to play her abusive boyfriend. An actor choice on par with Stephen Dorff playing Britney’s abusive boyfriend in the “Everytime” video (which owes its indelible look to direction by David LaChapelle). And, to play up the notion that Halsey, like Britney, got her poor taste in men as a result of the first man she had as an example—her father—Coppola intercuts the scene of Halsey and Rex arguing (as bombastically as Spears and Dorff) with Halsey and her father arguing when she was a child. A moment befitting the lyric, “Inner child that’s unrecruited, truth is/I’m not suited for it.” Indeed, perhaps only pursued “it” a.k.a. fame “just to be liked by strangers that she met online.”

    This idea of not being built for such a machine has also been emphasized by Spears, who stated, “I’m not really made for this industry.” And yes, anyone who is especially sensitive should avoid what Lady Gaga calls “The Fame” at all costs. Not that Spears had too much of a choice once her parents pushed her down the path for their own selfish, money-grubbing motives. A path that led to endless scrutiny, particularly of Spears’ body. To that point, another lyrical moment on Halsey’s “Lucky” reeks of Britney singing, “I’m Mrs. She’s Too Big Now She’s Too Thin” during “Piece of Me,” with Halsey phrasing it as, “And why she losin’ so much weight?/I heard it’s from the drugs she ate.”

    There’s another somewhat awkward allusion to Britney when Halsey also mentions, “I shaved my head four times because I wanted to/And then I did it one more time ’cause I got sick,” with everyone knowing that Britney’s 2007 head shaving is what led her down an abyssal spiral from which she couldn’t return. Especially with regard to that moment being leveraged as a prime example of her “madness,” therefore the need for her to be placed under a conservatorship. As for referencing the original “Lucky” video itself, the only instance of that is in the idea that there are two Halseys—the younger one and the famous one, with the latter watching over the former. The two only meet at the end of the video, when Famous Halsey (dressed, incidentally, like Kate Hudson in Almost Famous, another piece of pop culture from 2000) sits next to Young Halsey on a swing set. Alas, in the very final scene, Coppola returns to the swing set with Famous Halsey sitting all alone, the child version of herself having disappeared. An obvious metaphor for how all innocence is stamped out of you once you’ve been emotionally bulldozed for long enough.

    And it seems that’s the case for Halsey, who recently wrote of her “return” to music, “It’s hard to want to engage in a space that is completely devoid of any kindness, sympathy, patience; or to be honest human decency [oxymoron]. Especially after years of hiding from the interactions for fear that this EXACT thing would happen. I don’t know man. I almost lost my life. I am not gonna do anything that doesn’t make me happy anymore. I can’t spiritually afford it.” Of course, like Doja Cat threatening to quit music back in 2022, it’s unlikely that Halsey will really stop making music. Unlike Spears, who genuinely seems committed to preserving what’s left of her sanity by avoiding the music business like the plague.

    As for Halsey’s attempt at doing “Lucky” justice, let’s just say that, on “Without Me” (a video during which Halsey also has an abusive relationship displayed by intense arguing [with a G-Eazy lookalike, of course]), the singer incorporates a lyric from Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me A River.” Specifically, “You don’t have to say just what you did/I already know/I had to go and find out from them.” That Halsey chooses to recreate the most affronting moment from the single vis-à-vis Timberlake’s false narrative about how Spears cheated on him makes her, frankly, unworthy of covering any Brit song. No matter how much she’s touted herself as a fan.

    And so, while Halsey wanted to make a “moving” track/“pay homage” to Britney and the 2000s, it’s hard to feel much for it when all it does is take the musical backing of Des’ree’s “You Gotta Be” (though some insist Monica’s “Angel of Mine”) and pairs it with the chorus of “Lucky.” Leaving little of Halsey to be found.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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