Christina Aguilera’s new video “Not Myself Tonight” came out last week, and to say it was ridiculous would be an understatement. It was a constant moving cliche of overdone music video moments meant to be shocking. Taken together it was like a parody of an actual video. There was plenty of S&M, a girl on girl kiss, Christina on all fours crawling like a cat, and brandishing a whip. Several scenes looked like complete rip offs from Madonna videos, primarily “Express Yourself” with Madonna strutting on a smoky stage in a suit with a monocle and then licking from the cat bowl and pouring it down her back. In fact Aguilera’s video had all of these things. (The monocle part is around 1:45 in the video above. Aguilera pours chocolate down her back at 2:50. Compare that to the monocle part in Express Yourself at 2:00 in, and Madonna pouring milk down her back at 3:45.) There were also group scenes toward the end straight from Paula Abdul’s “Cold Hearted Snake” Video and I’m sure there’s much more I’m missing.

Anyway, while Aguilera should be apologizing for how derivative her video was she’s instead defending how sexy it was, as if it was as shocking and groundbreaking as she intended it to be.

Christina Aguilera’s brand-new “Not Myself Tonight” video is certainly jaw-dropping, a three-minute run of barely-there outfits, extended S&M-inspired sequences and a whole lot of guy-on-girl groping.

But in an interview with “Access Hollywood,” Aguilera defended the clip, saying that it shows off her wild side, which she’s not shying away from just because she’s a mother.

“Mama still has to be me,” she said. “I never claimed to be a cookie-cutter soccer mom. That’s all good for some people. Not for me.”

Aguilera — who, in previous interviews, has cited her two-year-old son, Max, as an inspiration for the songs on her upcoming Bionic album — said that she doesn’t think the video is inappropriate, and added that just because she’s a mother, it doesn’t mean that she’s not also an artist, one who deals honestly and frankly with the subject of sexuality.

“[Max] is going to grow up in a household where he knows mommy expresses herself artistically and some of that will have to reflect itself sexually too, at times,” she said. “He’s going to learn to respect the fact that women are allowed to express themselves and not feel shameful about their bodies or their sexuality.”

She added that while Max is already a fan of the songs on Bionic (which is due June 4), he’s not shy about expressing his allegiance to another of his mother’s pop contemporaries.

“He’s really into Rihanna,” Aguilera said. “And he does say ‘Put in mama’s song! Put in mama’s song!’ And then he goes, ‘Go cazy! Go cazy!’ It’s so cute.”

[From MTV]

I read a very good critique of this video on EW.com. They’re basically saying that Aguilera is desperate, derivative of both Madonna and Lady Gaga, and completely lacking in originality. As for the song, it doesn’t really stand out but it’s not bad I guess. It’s definitely not sticking in my head like “Express Yourself.”

The worst part about Xtina’s video, beyond the rather unabashed unoriginality of it, is the sad stink of I’ve-been-gone-forever-had-a-baby-and-now-want-to-be-relevant-again desperation. Cue: the girl-on-girl makeout sessions! Text messaging! Fire balls! When watching, there’s wasn’t a moment where I didn’t feel like Aguilera was clawing for relevancy, in a crazy, far beyond, post-Aguilera world. True story: Aguilera has been gone for a long time. There’s a desperate need, sort of like when she blipped back for two seconds with “Keeps Gettin’ Better” a couple years ago, for her to resuscitate her look and build it in the image of what’s relevant now. But maybe she should have gone in a totally different direction to avoid comparisons? Given us something totally different? The thing about Aguilera is that she’s used to zig when everyone else was zagging. And now, it seems like she decided to zag along with everyone else.

[From EW.com]

So we know who Christina is not, but who is she exactly? She was Dirrrty, she was vampy, and now she’s some kind of wacky empowered dominatrix, just like Madonna and Lady Gaga. I agree, she should go for something different. And she should shut up about how she’s not a soccer mom. There are plenty of us, and we make purchasing decisions for our families and teens.