While Britney Spears’ oeuvre is frequently deemed maudlin to the point of excess (earlier tracks like “From the Bottom of My Broken Heart” and “E-Mail My Heart” being prime examples), there have been numerous glimmers to indicate that she knows how and when to be a frosty bitch as well. One of the most shining beacons of such occurred on 2008’s Circus, specifically the tenth track, “Mannequin.” Oozing with trip hop influence, the song mirrors the vibe of being in a funhouse, where Britney is the one watching her now ex-lover lose his mind over what’s real and what’s not. Though he can be damned sure what’s not is any affection she might still harbor for him.
As she goadingly sings, “You told me you lonely/Can’t hear you, can’t feel you/I’m frozen, I’m posing/There’s no way you move me,” Britney sets the tone for the deadpan image of a mannequin she wishes to conjure. And surely, this was the perfect metaphor for her sentiments of the era (and beyond). Evidenced time and time again by her behavior post-2007, Britney chants, “I don’t care/I don’t care/My face like a mannequin.” This comparison feels especially profound when coming from someone who has been propped up most of her life. Forced to put on a show when she wasn’t necessarily emotionally stable enough to do so. The #FreeBritney movement, of course, adds an eerie layer of profundity to the underlying cry for help present on “Mannequin.”
In contrast to how she sees herself as unmalleable, Britney treats her obsessed lover as though he is the marionette to her mannequin, remarking, “If you wanna just scream, scream your lungs out/If you wanna just cry, cry your eyes out/I’ma do my thing, that’s what I’m about/You can cry your eyes out of your head.” Implicating at certain moments that she’s essentially going to rape him no matter what he’s in the mood for. It’s a very empowered female approach to sex pre-Cardi B (then again, 2008 was also around the time the plot of Hustlers was forming). As for the only live performance of the song during the appropriately titled The Circus Starring Britney Spears (a.k.a. The Circus Tour), it opens on a disturbing note, with one of B’s dancers placing the torso of a mannequin that looks like blonde Britney on top of a pair of moving legs affixed to a cushioned stool with wheels. The mannequin, not anatomically matched, begins to strut away from the dancer, who, all at once, rips the torso back off and runs away with it. Sinister on many levels, it reminds one vaguely of that scene in Toy Story where Woody and Buzz encounter Sid’s room filled with toys whose parts have been detached and reattached to the bodies of others at the arbitrary and cruel whims of their owner. Britney has undoubtedly experienced this metaphorical disembodiment many times over. So naturally, it’s no wonder she could so effectively sing a song about being immune to emotions, her own voice aloof and lifeless as she continues to repeat almost robotically, “My face like a mannequin.”
While it might be an unnerving revelation to realize just how much this song applies to her own emotional detachment, it certainly doesn’t hurt to listen to it when one needs a boost for how to lose any sympathy for a blubbering (soon to be ex) boyfriend.
