Britney Spears’ “Gimme More,” The Video: In Which Our Heroine Takes To The Pole

Surprise: The video for Britney Spears’ “Gimme More” has wormed its way into the world three days before its MTV premiere. And it’s about as well-crafted as anything you would expect from Spears at this point in time:

Blonde Britney is at a bar with two other blonde friends (NB: the line “It’s Britney, bitch” is not lipsynced, for some reason), and she notices a dancer–a gum-chewing (!) Brunette Britney–sitting in the corner. Brunette Britney then struts over to the pole conveniently located in the middle of the room and starts lipsyncing “Gimme More” in a fashion that’s slightly more alive than her performance on the VMAs a few weeks back (although the twitchy jump cuts, spaced-out lighting, and super-heavy eyeliner certainly help her “performance,” as it were). As the song continues, the following things happen: Brunette Britney takes off the half-jacket she is wearing for a few frames, so it looks like she’s topless; Blonde Britney laughs with her friends and attempts to send a come-hither look or two over to the dance floor; a few other dancers join her; we get to see that Brunette Britney is wearing ripped fishnets and open-toed patent-leather heels; there are a few shots that can only be described as “ass shots”; and there is a guy who looks like a morphed-together Leonardo DiCaprio and K-Fed somewhere in the bar, or at least nearby enough to get on camera. The dance ends, there’s another shot of Blonde Britney and pals, and then the clip ends.

Surely some smarter-than-thou critic out there is going to say that this is all part of Spears’ big metacommentary on fame that has been evolving over the year, and that we’re supposed to say “Gimme More” at the clip’s close, so she can bust out a trilogy of her own. But I’ll believe that when I see anything else from her that resembles an actual effort–I’ve watched this clip four times now, and more and more it just looks like cutting-room-floor footage stitched together at the last minute in order to keep a flailing pop star’s career alive for reasons that are at least slightly music-related. It’s sad–though perhaps inevitable–and even watching “Toxic” again only makes it more so.

Britney Spears – Gimme More [Brightcove]