By Sam Ranaghan

Britney Spears – Toxic

Toxic is a pop song that that was recorded in 2003, which was on her album “In the zone”. Toxic became a huge success after becoming top-five in fifteen countries, showing it was one of Britney Spears finest music videos.

Toxic is famous for being a high tempo track that includes a lot of fast/rapid editing so that it fits the genre of pop.

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Toxic is a dance-pop video that simply shows high tempo, with emphasis on movement and dance choreography.

The first location is on the plane where Britney Spears is dressed as an aeroplane assistant, and is the main focus purely because she’s in the centre of the video.

She is shows range of movement to satisfy the desire of the fans and expressed her sexuality with the way she dressed, for example having a tight blue outfit and also regularly “bumping and grinding” older men on the plane. In the

Britney also wears a near nude outfit as it’s almost skin coloured to portray voyeurism. It’s to reveal her sexuality.

The camera focusses a lot on her legs and ass as a way of making the video appealing and to sell sexuality to the audience. It captures attention from both males and females because appearance and movement.

Britney’s hair is a mixture of blonde, black and red in this video, to fascinate the audience and make sure they don’t get bored. This video portrays a lot of variety in costumes and hair colours.

Genre/Mise-en-scene

Throughout the video the camera is constantly focusing on Britney Spears. The close-ups are used to show she is the main star and the only attention in the video. To show the focus in mostly on Britney you can see the other airhostesses in the background, they are visible but are kept for a minimum so the audience are focused on Britney.

Long shots are used to mainly show off her slim, appealing body. For example, when she is on the plane as an airhostess outfit it makes her look really beautiful and attractive, whilst also being used to show her dancing skills. You can see the camera looks a lot at her long legs and bum to express her body. You also see her in a near nude outfit to express her sexuality to get the desire from the audience.

Camerawork

Editing is quick because of the fast beats of the song. The genre of this music video is dance-pop which means the style is going to be rapid and be high tempo. There’s lots of movement from Britney’s dancing so quick cuts are used to follow her around.

There are many different locations the video jumps to and by having quick cuts makes the video look sharper and more interesting for the audience.

This is an example of quick cuts. In this music video the scenes quickly jump from one to the other, which is used to portray a high tempo music video. This is also an example of continuity editing as these cuts are in order and show Britney’s movement.

Editing

In “Toxic” Britney is shown as a much sexualised object, she wears a variety of costumes, such as the airhostess outfit and near nude outfit, and are many camera shots showing off her legs and bum, especially at the start of the video.

Britney is shown as quite flirty and manipulates men for her own desires, which could possibly reflect her sexuality as giving her power and control over people. This also links with her being a superhero as they have their own powers and needs.

Voyeurism

The image that Britney is portraying is that her selling points are her body; she always looks attractive and appealing to her audience. This image demonstrate her star Image.

Britney is shown as energetic and entertaining, in “Toxic” there is a lot of dancing and movement.

Britney has a good connection with younger people and one of her traits is that she has a hidden desire to escape and she demonstrates this a lot in “Toxic”.

Star Image/ Brand

In “Toxic” Britney wears and near nude suit to reveal her sexuality, and an inspiration for this could be from The Holly Valence video for ‘Kiss Kiss’.

In 2003 the TV programme Alias was very popular, its stars a young woman who is an international spy, who also likes to dress up into different costumes/disguises to fulfil her job.

As you can see there is a similarity in the hair colour Britney portrays in “Toxic” to the hair colour in Alias which may have influenced Britney to use this in her video.

The video portrays Britney nearly as a superhero which she is always the centre of attention. An influence in this could be from the comic strip ‘Witch Blade'

Intertextuality

Steve archer’s definition of a music video is that music videos will cut between narrative and performance of the song by the brand, and Britney displayed this in her music video “Toxic” where she shows performance elements where she shows off her dance skills and the narrative is where she’s female spy portraying her control and power over men (using her sexuality)to reach the object of the quest marks Britney’s own desire to escape the confines of the music industry.

For people growing up watching her music videos and the type of style she portrays, her audience copy the way she dressed up and follow the style of her looks.

Part of the performance is related to the close-ups and lip-synching as well which make her the main star, which is fairly common when it comes to pop videos.

Narrative

The lyrics for “Toxic” signify that Britney Spears is now ready to move into an ‘adult’ persona. The lyrics come off as sexual which suits the visuals because of the way she shows off her body, and the outfits she wears, such as the near nude outfit.

The lyrics make her seem desirable which mirrors the fact that at the time of this music video, she was only 21 years old, which represents that Britney is now turning into and adult instead of being just a teenager. This would then make her target audience mostly likely been young teens and maybe some who are turning into adults themselves.

These lyrics are an example of the sexuality she portrays and how she’s trapped and the way she has the desire to escape.

There's no escape, I can't waitI need a hit, baby, give me itYou're dangerousI'm lovin' itToo high, can't come downLosing my headSpinning 'round and 'roundDo you feel me now?ChorusWith a taste of your lips, I'm on a rideYou're toxic, I'm slippin' underWith a taste of a poison paradiseI'm addicted to you, don't you know that you're toxic?And I love what you do, don't you know that you're toxic?

Lyrics