Were we just going through an extremely prudish period? I honestly don't get it, its literally just a girl dancing in her uniform, its not like she's grinding up against a guy in her bikini.

Also while we're on the topic can someone tell me why pre-breakdown Britney was considered controversial? Again looking back over her videos/performances its not like she's doing anything in her videos/performances apart from dancing, nothing in comparison to the likes of Katy Perry, Rihanna, Gaga today.

Looking back I would have thought that conservative America would have lapped her up, she was a good christian teenage girl singing about love and dancing and growing up and preaching about saving herself for Jesus etc.

It was the duality of good dutiful christian girl juxtaposed with slutty schoolgirl and she was only 17 below the legal age of consent in America

Well back then what she was doing was considered controversial.....now it's become normal, infact others push the boundaries alot further as they should, it's a generation thing.

Nasty Nick from BB was controversial for basically having a game plan, it was new back then and considered very controversial........a few years later and we can now consider it normal, virtually every BB contestant has a game plan now.

I think it was the lyrics, her paedophiles dream of an outfit, her age and who she was aimed at.

Nasty Nick had a bit more than a gameplan!
YEs he did have a gameplan but also he broke the rules.
He was encoraging tactical voting, telling people who to evict by writing names down which wasnt allowed.

If it wasn't for Britney, the modern pop girls probably wouldn't be able to get away with those things so easily now.

I remember it well as I was a child myself. Britney wore "slutty" clothes (again, they weren't really that slutty, but it was 1999) and millions of young girls were adoring her and trying to be exactly like her. A lot of parents were in a bit of a panic with their 7 year-old girls insisting on wearing belly-tops.

Similar situation with Eminem at the same time. He was getting protested against in the streets and banned from radio, etc. because of his lyrics, etc (coincidentally he also said he wanted to have sex with Britney when she was underaged, so all those people claiming she was promoting pedophilia, etc. had a point lol). He does those same things now still and nobody blinks an eyelid. Things have changed a lot since then, but honestly, it was very controversial Britney's song and video. Much moreso than anything in the past 5+ years that I can think of.

Society did get a lot more liberal after that (and also with the increase in popularity of the Internet). I remember a couple of years later everybody was constantly questioning Britney in interviews on whether she'd lost her virginity yet. So from uproar over a girl showing a bit of flesh to happily questioning her over her virginity in a couple of years was a lot of "progress".

Maybe people thought she was trying to be Madonna

Most of what has been said above sums it up! It was the bubblegum pop era of American music, and then along came Britney who projected that image but had something special and provocative underneath. The schoolgirl outift + bare midrift + a song about wanting a 'hit' of something from her crush + a glint in her eye = controversy back then. The controversy coupled with the fact that it was a brilliant, fun-filled, pop video for an excellent pop song just propelled her into the public eye.

Christina had a similar impact but to a lesser extent, because her song/video for Genie in a Bottle was more openly sexual. Her image wasn't the Christian girl next door, it was the everyday teenage girl. Britney mixed the role model image with a spark of sexuality which wouldn't have been fully understood by the younger demographic she was aimed at, so she satisfied the adult market and children's market.

I still remember she made a comment about chocolate being better than sex and that made front page of magazines.

I think the Britney/Xtina "rivalry" certainly paved the way for less outrage at music video content, we went from BOMT and Oops, to Dirrty (which back then was only shown late at night!) to Slave and now basically anything goes by without an eyelid being batted!

She wasn't really controversial though, she just had the right ideas at stealing attention, such as the VMA performance where for a split second it appeared she'd stripped naked, that picture was everywhere, then the 03 Kiss (I cannot believe it's been almost ten years!) with Madonna, again everywhere.

Looking back they weren't that controversial in the slightest but things have moved pretty quickly these past few years. As mentioned the internet has played a big role in that.

Also, there was a cross-pond difference. In Louisiana teen parlance, "hitting" someone means sending them an SMS or pager message. However, when that came over the Atlantic, it also mixed in with the Sexy Schoolgirl/light "spank me" meme.

It actually then became MORE controversial over here as wasn't the Operation Spanner case active at the time, along with the whole issue around the legal status of BDSM at the time?

So, instead of "...give me a sign/Text me baby one more time", in British ears it was "... strike me baby one more time".

And IIRC, there was a massive issue around sexual assault at the time...

I forgot to mention that Hit me baby one more time was meant to be the original title but the hit me was replaced with the ... and it became ...Baby one more time as people were concerned she was promoting domestic violence and the whole sex thing was an issue over here but not so much as she was at least in Europe over the age of consent it was just 7 year olds copying here that caused panic

If there was any controversy it was only based on the school uniform, which was rather sexy, and thus would lead to some hysteria over the sexualisation of children and so forth.

Yeah, those things that Britney, etc. back then that were causing public outrage just aren't controversial anymore.

In this day and age (post-2005-ish), nothing can be controversial anymore. The most controversy a pop artist ever causes nowadays is usually just like an animal rights group or parents council or religious organisation or whatever filing a complaint or something. It's impossible for a pop artist to be controversial anymore. With the Internet era and everything, nothing shocks people now.


I'm guessing you can't remember back then?

Not quite. The controversy at the time was around *sexualised violence*...

In America though she was deemed a minor but portraying herself as a sexual being so some controversy stemmed from there too

So the song was about sadomasochism?

I get the points about it being a sexy schoolgirl thing (although I see sluttier school uniforms than that on the average school aged girl) but this all happened in a post-Madonna world, and it was no where that provocative in comparison.

I just remember growing up and thinking she was all the time in the news for doing somthing, like her stripping off at the VMA's or dancing with a snake or kissing Madonna and really that's nothing, we've seen GaGa die on stage, Rihanna sing about S&M, and Katy can kiss a girl and like and no one bats an eyelid.

I just never got why people attacked her for being controversial when she wasn't at all and at the same time she was preaching the "good" christian message of Jesus. She even stated she wanted to stay a virgin until she was married, the bible couldn't have asked for a better spokesperson!

No it was that the song was thought to condone or promote spousal abuse with the line hit me baby one more time she was under age and was aiming herself at young girls at the age of 8 and above whilst wearing a schoolgirl outfit to titillate the boys whilst simultaneously acting the part of the good christian virgin (remember she also stated she would have no sex befroe marriage etc) it was basically the way she was marketed as wholesome then going and doing things like kissing madge it was controversial as who she was aimed at as much as anything.

And you have to remember Madonna took years to recover after Erotica/Sex and in the context of the time it was very conservative and everything was censored in a way it took Britney and Christina doing what they did to allow others to follow even after Erotica now it seems tame and like so what back then it was like OMG she is sexualising young girls and not portraying a good message and is a bad bad girl whilst singing songs like oops i did it again albeit in a tight red catsuit it was just a ball of contradiction

Britney made the choice to wear that very famous outfit and she also came up with the concept as the original video was going to be her fighting a robot :/

It may have been controversial back then but now that video and song is Very Iconic and always will be.

Parents were already dealing with this from The Spice Girls and pop music in general.

I remember because my cousin worked in a creche pre-Britney and she had little 5 year olds coming in singing "I want to have s3x on the beach" and Mousse T.

She also once asked a shop assistant how she could sell such grown up clothes for little children! Again that was pre-Britney. Maybe it didn't happen in the states but it was happening over this side of the world.



To be perfectly honest when I first saw Britney's video I thought "Oh look it's an American version of Billie Piper" and "who the fook that age wears pigtails?" I was a bit younger than her and the idea of a 16/17 year old showing up in school with "bangs" (or a fringe as I call it) and pink fluffy pig tails was ridiculous to me!*

The only thing I thought was*controversial*was when I misheard the lyrics and thought she said "Show me how you wanna do me" but even then that didn't seem *that* out of the ordinary for the time. And I assumed "Hit me" just meant "F**k me".

The other two outfits she wears in the video were nothing new either - a mixture of Sporty Spice and Baby Spice. In fact take ouy the sequence where she's wearing the uniform and you more or less have the video for Billie Piper's "Girlfriend"


What was a bit more *shocking* to me was the Rolling Stone pictures , because it was a much more*deliberate*attempt to incorporate childhood and s3x or the transition between the two or whatever the point of it was.

The other videos from the debut weren't that interesting but it was more the photoshoots and the stuff she was saying...*

madonna made everybody proud of their sexuality. sex sells as what people say all the time

What is all this rubbish about domestic abuse! No one even mentioned it as far as i can remember and i would be surprised if anyone has any proof. The song eas clearly a girl asking a boy for another chance. The contraversy was about the sexy schoolgirl video.

i thought "hit me" was meant as the same definition as "i'd hit/tap that" i.e. "i want to have sex with him/her" so she was basically asking them to sleep with her one more time

No it isnt. Only 9 states have the age set at 18

No and some states are 17 but in some instances then she would have been especially in the bible belt states who were the most outraged

Where are you getting this info? Having lived in america at the time i can tell you there was very little outrage at all.