Janet and Madonna: Inspirations for the Controversial Teen Queen

Before we can get to how Britney Spears has influenced the younger female artists in the United States, we must look at who has influenced her to be the way she is. According to Spears herself she says she knew looked up to people “like you know, Janet Jackson and Madonna. And they were major influences for me.” Let’s first look at Janet Jackson. She, just like Spears, is one of the top-selling artists in the United States, and around the entire globe. She has kept herself in the public eye for not necessarily the amount of albums she sells/doesn’t sell, but by the way her music videos, lyrics, clothing, and dancing all revolve around being sexual and racy. Before she was most known for having her breast exposed at the super-bowl, Jackson made a name her herself as a sex symbol. On the cover of a 1993 Rolling Stone magazine, she posed in nothing but jeans and a man holding her breasts as she just stood and posed like nothing was wrong. Along with her racy pictures, her performances were also sexually charged as shown in this video from her Velvet Rope Tour.

Also in her music videos there has never been someone who has raised the bar for performing in a sexual nature. In this music video for her song "If", shown here, Jackson is seen dancing provocatively by touching her crotch multiple times, and shoving a male dancers head in that area as well. Her dancing clearly has influenced the way Spears dances as well.

Besides Jackson, the “Queen of Pop” herself, Madonna, has probably influenced Spears the most as music video and performing artist. Without Madonna, you probably would never see female artists like Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga, or even Britney Spears herself. Ever since Madonna became a pop culture and American icon, she has brought out numerous music videos that have pushed the boundaries, and her performances on stage also have left many jaws drop as they watch her sing and dance. In one of her earliest performances, Madonna performed at the first MTV Video Music Awards and sung her hit song “Like a Virgin”. Her highly sexualized performance, including grinding and rolling all over the stage floor, catapulted her into success that has still gone on until this day.

Along with that performance her concert stage productions have also pushed buttons on what the public thinks of her. In her “Blonde Ambition” tour, along with her questionable outfits, her on stage persona was sexualized to the maximum. Her performances in concert were so racy that the Pope called for a boycott when she came to Rome. If it wasn’t known before that Madonna was racy, then that boycott should’ve definitely let people know she wasn’t just a normal everyday pop star.

Along with her stage performances, her music videos have also raised questions of whether they were suitable for the public to watch or not. Her music video for her song “Justify My Love” was banned from MTV when it was released towards the end of 1990. Scenes from the video included suggestions of bisexuality, group sex and voyeurism, things that were definitely not seen in the mainstream music video industry. Many people, and groups, though the video clip was a type of pornography, while Madonna stated that it was anything but pornography itself. A few years later, she released yet another controversial music video for her song “Erotica”. You can only guess what kind of video would come out of a song title like that. The video, with it’s highly charged sexual content was played only three times on MTV (and during those three airings, the video was played only during it’s “safe hours” between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.) before it was officially banned. If it weren’t for Madonna pushing the buttons on what can be put in music videos, or what could be performed on stage, most of the pop stars we see today would probably be doing nothing the way they do now, and there certainly would be no 17-year old pop star posing provocatively on the cover of a magazine.