Welcome to Cedar Springs Garden!

It’s a nice little town, somewhere down south.  It’s a place where you can spend the day swinging back and forth on a tire swing and where you and your boyfriend can chastely spend the night sitting on the back of a billboard.  It’s also the setting for the music video of Britney Spears’s From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart.

From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart was the last single to be released from Britney’s debut album and I have to admit that, when I watch it today, I have mixed feelings about this video.  On the one hand, the song showed, in its own simplistic way, that Britney was a singer who was capable of delivering emotional content.  On the other hand, there’s a soft-focus blandness to the video that kind of reminds you of why it took critics a while to take Britney seriously as a performer.  Some of the problem is that the guy that Britney’s singing about doesn’t really seem like he’s worth all the drama.  The other problem is that the video itself could have just as easily been set in the 1950s as opposed to the start of the 21st century.  This is the safe, non-threatening Britney, as opposed to the Britney who, in her next big hit, would joyously and triumphantly celebrate getting “lost in the game.”

For such an inoffensive music video, From the Bottom of My Broken Heart was surprisingly controversial when it was released.  That’s because was directed by Gregory Dark.  It’s one of the many videos that have been directed by Mr. Dark and, in fact, one could argue that, in the 1990s and the early aughts, he was one of the best video directors around.  However, before he directed music videos, Gregory Dark directed not only hardcore adult films but also several erotic thrillers.  Even though, by the time that this video came out, Dark was no longer making adult features, it was argued by some critics that Dark directing this video was evidence that Britney was an unwholesome influence.  That’s especially hilarious when you consider that this is probably one of the most wholesome videos in which Britney Spears ever appeared.

Enjoy!