Hit Me Baby One More Time by Britney Spears
The music video Hit Me Baby One More Time aims to present Britney Spears as a fresh young artist by highlighting her performative capabilities.
The narrative, as a whole, focuses on Spears’ romantic attraction to a male classmate, who is presented as a basketball player. While exploring the narrative, it allows for Spears to explore herself as an artist and branch out from being a ‘child star’ – despite the fact that the main setting of this music video is at a high school, it could potentially show her transformation as a ‘child star’.
The video begins with an establishing shot at Spear’s high school, setting the scene for the narrative as Spears as a bored student that is waiting to escape when the bell rings. Surrounding students in the classroom share Spears’ same attitude towards class and their teacher. The female middle-aged teacher is presented as a typical tedious and dull teacher, which is reflected in her costume – a plain grey suit and basic black glasses.
In comparison, Spears and the other female students wear a remodeled version of their standard uniform with their shirts tied into cropped shirts and almost completely unbuttoned. With a variety of different accessories. As the narrative shifts towards Spears in the corridor, Spears’ talent as a performer is highlighted with a choreographed dance routine, which also presents gender stereotypes as the female students are performing in a relatively sexual manner and are the focus of the shot as they are positioned closest to Spears whilst the male students are positioned at the back of the shot and are performing the same choreograph in a less sexual manner.
Further on in the music video, Spears is positioned in a courtyard and continues on with the choreographed routine. However, with this part of the narrative, there is a focus on different ethnicities that are represented in the video. Combined with the fact that they are located in a courtyard, this emphasises that Spears’ ( as an artist) is modern and trendy as she is partaking in activities that reflect what was popular at the time of the releases of the music video.
Finally, the narrative shifts to Spears and the male ‘love interest’ as she continues her performance in the high school’s gymnasium. The final part of the performance underlines the unity between teenagers in comparison to the older generation represented in the music video. Despite the fact that they all have distinct differences between them including gender and ethnicity, which is shown through the costumes they wear, they are unified by their cohesion with the choreographed danced routine and performance.