Britney’s Rapiest Song Ever

“Hey, I have an idea for a song for Britney’s new album.”

“Awesome! Is it something empowering to help dispel the image of her being totally out of control of her life?”

“Eh, not really.”

“Well, okay, is it something upbeat and fun, you know, to show that she’s fine after this past year of personal strife?”

“Well, not really.”

“Oooh, is it an emotional ballad about her broken heart?”

“Well, kindof. You know when you drink to much and some guy takes advantage of you and you wake up the next morning feeling awful and asking yourself ‘Where am I?’ ‘What am I doing’?”

“You mean date rape. You want to write a song about date rape.”

“Yes.”

“Good idea. People love ballads about date rape. ”

Today Amanda of The Sexist featured  seventh track off of Spears’ Circus album, Blur, as a Date Rape Anthem. She did a great job detailing the general rapiness of the song, as well as pointing out that Britney did not write the song herself, rather it was the brainchild  of Marcella Ariac, Stacy Barth, and Nathaniel Hills and producer Danja.

It was an interesting choice to include in Britney’s comeback effort; while most of the songs are about empowerment, taking charge, and being in control, the narrator of Blur is not only a victim, but a victim who blames herself–“I shouldn’t have given in, but I just couldn’t fight,” she sings. It was her fault for giving in, for not being able to fight. And with that, she recuses her unnamed assailant.

The song is so empty and apathetic, as evidenced by the recurring “Hey yeah yeah” lyric, as if to say, “I don’t have anything meaninful to say about this, so I’m just going to make some sort of sound.” There is no overcoming, there is no taking control, there is just, “this happened and I’m going through the motions, too bad.”

A song isn’t going to cause someone to rape or cause someone who has been sexually assaulted to become the victim in their situation, but this song does add to the general apathy toward date rape–the idea that if you dress a certain way or act a certain way, you’ve just set yourself up to be assaulte or the bizarre logic that if two people are drunk, then it can’t be rape. Blur excuses the actions with tacit passiveness.