Bad Performance - What Went Wrong at the VMA?

Well I am sure many of you watched the Video Music Awards or at least heard about Britney Spears' performance of the song, Gimme More. Since I do not know her personally, I am breaking down her performance based on the assumption that whoever she was working with to make this performance, she was not a whiney high maintenance hard to work for entertainer. I have heard both things about Britney Spears. I have read that some people that know her say she is a delight and a very talent performer. I have also heard though that she is a horrible person, shouldn't be raising kids, and she has no talent.

I am not writing this to discuss Britney as a person because I am in no position to do that since I have never met her, nor met the people that made such criticisms.

I did, however, see her performance during the VMA of 2007.

I also compared her older performances to this most recent one. And at that point it became quite clear to me why perhaps people were saying such horrible things.

Here is my broken down views I have of what could make her future performances better and what went wrong with this one.

Her Image
Britney Spears has made a shift of images throughout the life of her carrier. She started as an innocent girl. Just take a look at her picture on the cover of her first album compared to her latest ones. She went from this innocent girl to this very sexual and seductive woman.

Since sex sells, it seems like Britney and perhaps whoever is helping her out (or hurting) her carrier is having her hang onto this image. I think at this point that image should die. There are other aspects about Britney that can be focused on.

She could change up her image of perhaps being a sexy mother, instead of just a sex doll. Then perhaps her new body size would not be so frowned upon on. I think her songs could reflect a little on this, but of course not talk about motherhood, (because I'm sure young girls who look up to Britney don't want to sing along to songs about that) but at least struggles she had and how she overcame them.

Heck, she could write a song about how the world has criticized her, but she is not going to let it get her down. Think of how many people that could relate to. And she can do it in her sexy Britney way, but just not over the top.

She was like 18 years old when her first album was released. Seven or eight years later, she has changed. I think that the expectations of her should be a little different than what they once were. She's not going to be 18 forever. Sure, don't you all wish your favorite actresses and singers would be young and hot forever for your entertainment enjoyment But they won't.

Her Outfit
Who's idea was it for her to wear that? I think most people could agree that was a terrible choice. I think that the skimpiness of the outfit was intentional. It was probably an overall belief that if they put Britney out there on stage wearing practically nothing, and still had a decent body people would go crazy in love.

In fact the opposite happened and people were appalled that she was wearing it.

To be honest, I don't think her body is bad at all. As a matter of fact, she has a nice body...right now. She had two kids and is still able to look like that! I hope she is taking good care of herself in the mean time.

But it goes back to that people always think that people who are "deserving" of being on stage are the ones that are skinny to the point of not being healthy. This is a sad cultural thing many of us have been brought up with, is that beauty is super thin.

And since I think Britney has a pretty nice body right now, I really think it was a bad choice of outfit.

But here's a thought; if Britney wasn't wearing something revealing, would people have criticized as well? Do you think Britney could've really done anything right, anyway? She was under the publics complete scrutiny.

Well I think she could've done better, and she could've done something for less criticism, but I do think that if she would've covered up more there might have been the same amount of criticism. If she is a little bigger than she use to be, wearing more clothing could've given the image that she was bigger too with having fabric on top of her skin.

Even so, I think that outfit hurt her a lot of ways. I do not know for sure if it was her fault or not in picking the outfit. But every one will blame her because she wore it.

Her Enthusiasm

Britney didn't seem happy to be there, which was unfortunate. Comparing her facial expressions from older videos to now, she did not seem excited to be performing.

There could be a number of reasons for this. Maybe she was nervous. It was a long time since she had a performance like this. You know, she's human too and she could still get nervous.

Perhaps since she had been given so much media coverage, she knew every single person out there was going to look at her with a judging eye.

Or, maybe she just wasn't in the mood to perform.

This really doesn't mean she lost her touch, but maybe it was her first time (in a while) jitters. If Britney really didn't want to be there, and doesn't want to perform, then she should stop.

Her excitement on stage and her girlish glow is what made her so popular. If she loses that sparkle in her eye, she loses the audience... no matter how much skin she's showing.

For future performances, she needs to get that sparkle back in her eyes, and make it look like she is really excited to be on stage again.

Choreography

She is known for her dancing, but I do not know if she makes her own dance moves or she has a choreographer to help her.

Something should have been different during that performance. The whole thing looked very robotic. They were doing the moves, but it didn't look natural.

For all we know Britney gave it her best with what the choreographer gave her, or maybe Britney was being difficult. Who's to know except for those that were behind the scenes.

I noticed how the media feeds off of mistakes. If she would've done a wonderful job, how many people would've raced to their computers to see the replay? But since she 'messed up' every one wanted to see.

Think of all the people who do not watch beauty pageants, and when they heard of that young woman mess up on her question, everyone had to see it. People who hadn't watched a beauty pageant for more than 10 seconds in their life were suddenly logging in to see what all the buzz was about.

And if you would've told the same people that the woman nailed her question and had people all teary eyed, with emotions run high, no one would've went to look.

I agree that the performance was really not that good, but I think that some of the horrible things should not have been said either.

There were reasons why her performance wasn't good; her present image, her new body shape (which is still nice, just not what it use to be), her outfit, and her enthusiasm.

Britney can still save her career if she does something to fix it. And I am safe to bet that every one will be watching, curious to see what she does with it.