Per request: Hold It Against Me: Music Video Review/Synopsis

By branjoseph, February 18, 2011

I liked the video a lot, I was impressed. She looked great, the video was edgy and hard. She really did look gorgeous in the close ups, her body looked good, the outfits were really cool for the most part, the dancers costumes were dope, I liked the dance stage sequences, and the audio mix was incredible.

I think Jonas Akerlund chopped it up a little too much. It was a lot on the eyes. I know there was a lot more continuous footage of the dance sequences but they got chopped up so much. As much as that makes me wonder if they were masking something, I have gathered that it is very much a style of Jonas to be choppy. 

The storyline was a bit unclear and confusing (again, in Akerlund fashion) but I like that. It leaves room for speculation, imagination, and for theories to develop for days to come. If everything were spelled out too clearly it would be like your typical music video that spells everything out as though the audience is stupid. 

I pretty much take that Britney is taking on her past image, her media-distorted image and self and fighting it. She is hooked up to all those video monitors and as she fights herself she bleeds out all of the past images of herself in technicolors. The clawed Britney with microphones surrounding her is media-villain Britney wearing the red VS skull shoulderpads. The Britney floating in white is the pure/real Britney facing all of her past caricatures. By the end she is tattered and floored, but freed and reborn.

I am pretty disappointed about some of the scenes in which I don’t think it is actually Britney. No, not the dance scenes, that is all her. Even the shaded silhouette sequence is her, as I believe per my freeze-framing and zooming – but what I am talking about is the bleeding-paint/seizure scene; it never shows her face. Hair is always covering it and when freeze framed I can clearly make out a wig. I guess filming that sequence could be long and tedious, and that’s why a double was brought in, but I am still disappointed.. but maybe I am wrong. 

Both the Britneys in a lot of the fight scene (not close-ups) were not Britney, but I guess it needed to be professional fight actors. Dark hair could be seen under the wigs when I watched in slow-motion. Slightly disappointed about that, but I guess necessary if even for insurance reasons.

I am okay with some of the product placements; it has become regular for artists to incorporate their perfumes in their videos (Mariah has done it, and it has become regular for Britney as well) and I understand the Sony plug, since Sony BMG owns Britney’s Jive label. The PlentyOfFish plug, however was completely jarring and abrupt from the video’s continuum. At 1st I thought it was an Akerlund thing, since it has been in other of his videos, but I think that that PlentyOfFish (via Kluger Agency) is just aggressively marketing themselves by paying lots of money to appear in videos (Jason Derulo, Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, etc.). Videos are really expensive to make so, I can somewhat understand that. 

That aside, I loved it. There were lots of intricacies and small homages and messages that we are not even associating yet. (The boys with blurred eyes blindly worshipping at her feet? Or were they not blind worshippers but nameless supporters lifting her up?)

I also really really liked how the old Britney videos were actually mouthing in-sync with the breakdown vocals. That was very clever and cool. Overall, not a let down, and I’m more excited than ever for single #2.