The kiss of Britney Spears and Madonna, which took place in August 2003, has become a symbol of the zero years for pop culture and the main event of the first decade of the 21st century. However, no one has fully figured out what exactly this kiss symbolized. Let's fill in the gap.

On August 28, 2003, during the 20th annual MTV Video Music Awards in New York, an event took place out of the ordinary and completely unexpected for many. An event that was talked about for several more years and which became a symbol of global changes in pop culture. It all started, however, quite innocently. Britney Spears took to the stage dressed as a bride and sang Madonna's hilarious 80s hit "Like a Virgin". Britney was soon joined by another singer dressed as a bride, Christina Aguilera. Those sitting in the hall (mostly American pop stars) applauded understandingly, someone whispered contemptuously, someone shook his head in a trance, Eminem, without ceasing to beat his hands, adjusted his glasses ...

But there was a significant pause in the air.

A solemn wedding hymn sounded and ... a mystery began. Madonna herself appeared from the depths of the scenery in a black suit and a black bowler hat. The audience erupted into a storm of applause. All the pop stars rose from their seats, standing up to greet the queen of pop.

You can't just talk about what happened after that. The words: “Madonna kissed Britney Spears during the joint performance of the song “Hollywood”” - they don’t convey anything in particular ... Better see for yourself, here is a five-minute video:

And Missy Eliot at the end, as a Christian voodoo priest crowning pop divas, rages on stage, reading her incantatory rap.

The kiss has always been a sacred, ritual gesture. “... Here Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a multitude of people with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people. And the one who betrayed him gave them a sign, saying: Whom I kiss, he is, take him. And immediately coming up to Jesus, he said: Rejoice, Rabbi! And kissed him." (Matthew 26:47-49). This is the kiss of Judas. Other well-known myths associated with the kiss are the Kiss of the General Secretaries (the famous Brezhnev-Honecker hickey, which was later immortalized on the Berlin Wall and became a symbol of the 80s), “Kiss of Stalin”, “Kiss of Cybele”, “Kiss of the Sphinx”, “Kiss of a sailor and a nurse ”,“ Kiss of the sleeping beauty ”,“ Holy kiss ”in Orthodox Christianity ...

On a subtle level, a kiss is a merging of souls, about the same as mixing blood during fraternization. A kiss is associated with the consolidation of family relationships and with the acquisition of integrity, connectedness (the root is “whole”). In a word, a kiss is a sacrament.

Kiss of Madonna and Britney Spears according to the results of various polls was repeatedly called the "kiss of the decade." At the same time (and this in itself is very significant!) no one even paid much attention to the fact that immediately after the kiss with Britney, Madonna kissed Aguilera too. They said she kissed Britney. And not: she kissed Britney and Christina. That is, unequivocally, the audience clearly caught the signal - a kiss with Britney Spears mattered, and a kiss with Christina Aguilera - this is already so, for symmetry.

“At that time, the very performance of Madonna, along with Britney and Christina, was a huge event. Nobody expected a kiss at all! The organizers of the ceremony had no idea that this could happen, ”the MTV staff later said. "This performance will forever remain a memorable moment in the history of show business."

Western media discussed the topic for about a year after the ceremony. Only the September 11 terrorist attack had a greater resonance ... Madonna herself innocently a few days later (everyone knows that she is an absolutely innocent creature) justified herself, assuring that it was a purely friendly kiss and she does not understand at all why they talk about it so much (“ I guess there’s nothing more to talk about?”) And added: “In fact, I didn’t even expect it to be such a kiss, Britney behaved very aggressively.”

The Russian media did not lag behind in exaggerating the events either. The plot was shown in the news on federal TV channels, and BRAVO magazine (at that time the main pop magazine in Russia) came up with a hand-drawn cover from the cult design studio Dopingpong.Com. The cover featured a vector Britney Spears kissing a glamorous black boot with the MAMADONNA plaque glittering brightly on it… Inside the issue, the reader could find an ecstatic biography of Britney Spears. Quote:

“Justin burned it to the ground. Devastated, indifferent to everything, inanimate, she turned into a doll. They painted her face, she was packed in corsets, she was put on stage and shouted “motor”. She began to twitch to the usual sounds, she was clapped. Then they led to the journalists, and she uttered the words invented by the producers. She didn't care. She decided to be strong, damn strong. When she was told that during a television talk show it would be nice to shed a tear over an unhappy first love, she did it too. And when Justin appeared on the threshold of her apartment, she just threw a burning cigarette butt in his pants. Then they explained to her that marriage plays an important role in the career of a pop singer. You need to think about it in advance, select options, follow public reactions ... "Who do you like, Brit?" the manager asked jokingly. “I want to be stuck in an elevator with Brad Pitt when the lights go out in fucking New York,” she said in a cracked, dull voice. The next day it appeared in the papers...

And then she suddenly woke up. It's funny: it was like in a fairy tale, only instead of the prince, the sleeping beauty was kissed by a woman. The idol of her childhood - she did not even guess that someday this would happen. Madonna became her mother, sister, teacher, guru… Everything changed in her life. She fired half her spies and overseers. I learned to walk the streets again. Relearned to want and make independent decisions. No one else will tell her! And here she is. With Jason, her husband."

A little less than a year later, Britney Spears gave birth. And BRAVO magazine came out again with an unusual cover from Dopingpong: Britney Spears in the form of a Renaissance Madonna, with a baby in her arms. And the announcement: "Britney became Madonna." Here is Dima Mishenin's visionary text published in this issue about the religious nature of pop succession:

“It all started with the 20th annual MTV Video Music Awards, when Madonna kissed Britney Spears on stage live. It was at that moment that Britney lost her virginity. Performing the song "Like a Virgin" and surrendering to Madonna in front of a basillion spectators. And the tempter Justin Timberlake, who had abandoned young Britney before that, almost choked with envy when he saw how his girlfriend was done in front of the whole world what he could not do. Britney became a woman. She was robbed of her virginity by Madonna, and the whole world saw the birth of a New Sex Icon. It seemed that on that day the Holy Spirit entered her, and no other man in the world has the right to touch her after the holy lips of the Madonna. Maybe Britney got pregnant right then. And this is the longest divine pregnancy in the history of pop music. Indeed, it was from that very year 2003 that the reputable betting company William Hill repeatedly offered gamblers to conclude deals, the essence of which boiled down to one thing: is Britney pregnant or not. What gender will Britney's baby be? When exactly is Britney due? This time all bets are accepted, the end is nearing.

All the most popular media are chained to Britney's belly. This is the main sensation of 2005. 2 million regular visitors came
to the official website of the singer to hear the good news about her pregnancy. All fans of Britney, like Magi, look to the sky in anticipation of the Star, which will show them where the worship of the Child will take place. In search engines, the phrase "Pregnant Britney" is in first place. The birth is expected this fall. Britney's husband Kevin Federline is like the unflappable and calm Joseph. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with positive test pregnancy, stolen from the wastebasket of their hotel room in Los Angeles and sold at auction by the Internet casino GoldenPalace.com for fabulous money. Kevin plays the role of a husband with the blessing of a higher power, as in the Gospel, or, more precisely, as in a family reality show that is already being filmed about their couple. Britney looks like she really is capable of a virgin birth from the Holy Spirit or a Celestial, but not from an earthly man. It seems that Britney conceived from the saliva of the Goddess, and not from the sperm of a mortal. And she is destined to become the New Madonna and Immortal. The third in a row on planet Earth, after the Virgin Mary and Louise Veronica Ciccone ...

Ave maris stella! Let us rejoice and thank the Lord for the Miracle sent down to us!”

But… Dima Mishenin was wrong. Or was Madonna wrong? The miracle didn't happen. After the birth of her first child, the glory of Britney Spears gradually faded ... What happened? Maybe Britney and Madonna's kiss should be interpreted differently?

In principle, yes, Madonna did symbolically hand over the branch to Britney then, initiated it, but the fact is that Madonna was not supposed to hand over this branch to Britney at all. And not Aguilera.

Britney Spears really personified the entire pop project of the zero. A large transnational show business made a serious bet on her, hammered in inhuman loot. However, Britney Spears has never been a true pop goddess. Britney from the very beginning, from childhood, was just a production project. A re-produced (albeit talented) girl who did not know what was happening around and where she had ended up. Pop music (not show business and all the accompanying PR fuss, namely music, songs) is actually a stalker zone, a sphere of connecting the everyday world with the world of spirits and gods, the sounding lining of a seitgeist that gives people the strength to live on, inspiring them to stay on this planet full of horror and goodness. Allowing you to feel the joy of life ... She said very well about this: “Pop music is a very important thing. I think this is one of the most powerful forces in our daily life. The problem is that pop music has deceived and betrayed us a little, so we treat it with a grain of salt. Pop music used to be completely different. Now it's mostly just a way to make money. But people still need pop. It's just that no one has the courage to make that pop that would really correspond to modernity.

That is, POP is, in principle, a kind of order. In which not all of known to the world so-called "pop stars" play at least some role (and even more so the role of a master of such a high degree of initiation as Madonna).

Of course, Britney (who didn't write a single song herself and didn't invent anything in her image) was not the one to whom Madonna should have passed her throne. "Akella missed" is what Madonna and Britney kiss means in pop culture.
Madonna came in the 80s and was the head of the pop order throughout the 80s and 90s - along with Michael Jackson. Why was she wrong? After all, it is clear that there was never anything in common between her and Britney Spears (except for the business interests of record labels). Madonna is really cool and talented, she really had excellent, one might say, folk songs ... Rather, Madonna should have passed the palm, made her the pop queen for the next ten years. And Madonna felt and understood whom she should dedicate: she always really liked what Björk was doing, and therefore, back in 1994, she wanted to involve an Icelandic woman to work on her album Bedtime Stories. But she resolutely refused to cooperate. True, then she was nevertheless persuaded to write the title song for the album. And there was Madonna's most unusual hit "Bedtime Story" (and her most metaphysical clip).

Björk then did not even want to meet Madonna. Here is what the Icelander says about this: “I tried to avoid her as long as possible. I like her, but she lives in a very material world. I cannot accept the universe that surrounds her. I would prefer that our meeting happened by chance, somewhere in a bar, and we would not even immediately recognize each other.

In short, Björk did not want to participate in all these ceremonies, because she considered them a manifestation of fake and schematism (she generally sent show business to hell as a child, me). So Madonna had no choice but to follow the lead of the record companies and kiss Britney. Of course, she immediately realized that she was mistaken (and a week later on the Ofra Winfrey show, she anxiously tried to reduce everything to a joke), but there was nowhere to retreat. And a month after the kiss on the new Britney Spears album, Madonna will again sing with her - the song "Me Against the Music" ("I am against music" - a symbolic title). And even star with her in video clip for this song. This is not a joke, this is a dedication… (Admittedly, all the joint appearances of Britney and Madonna in this clip look very blurry, and this suggests that they did not even meet during the filming.)

What happened to Britney Spears? In fact, everything does not look the best way. It looks more like a tragedy than a celebration. Possessing neither the abilities nor the powers necessary for a high priestess, under the stress of the high-frequency currents that began to walk through her, she soon plunged into a pool of depression and despair. Trying to hide from the pop demons that overcame her after a magical kiss, Britney starts a family with a goat-bearded Mephistopheles - dancer Kevin Federline (who, after making her children, soon leaves her, pinching off a significant jackpot from her multi-million dollar fortune). With the zeal of a frenzied female, she tries to raise her children, but ... poor dissolute Britney, she does not succeed.

She gets fat endlessly, drinks a lot, uses drugs (at least that’s what the tabloids say), ends up in a psychiatric hospital, shaves her head, lashes out at journalists, tries to defend her parental rights, which she was deprived of because of the intrigues of Kevin.

The record label, in shock, is trying to return the former cash cow to the stage (obviously spending inhuman amounts on psychoanalysts and fitness trainers), but the next album of the failed pop queen fails, the image of a “schoolgirl who has grown into a diva” excites no one - no nerds, no housewives. The new songs are like the struggles of a struggling beaver. Tastes have changed. Producers are not capable of capturing the spirit of the times on their own, they need a real guide, not a puppet. In this regard, for some time there were rumors that Britney intended to record an album in collaboration with Thom Yorke from Radiohead. But why does he need her? Thom Yorke is friends with a real, albeit uncrowned, pop queen -. And writes music with her.

Björk, about the metamorphoses that are happening to Britney, says this: “I sympathize with her. I am sometimes compared to her, because I also started my pop career as a child. But I had a choice. I could send everything, but she can't. That is, even if she moves to Hong Kong or Africa, she will not run away. And it's scary. It was scary to see all these newspapers that had pictures of her without panties. Apparently, hundreds of paparazzi then attacked her and filmed.

All these processes taking place with Britney Spears symbolize the complete and final collapse of the corporate show business machine. Lost touch with reality in the dubious prospect of fooling the masses. For a while, they managed to fool someone by selling man-made pop idols. But there is something stronger. Nature. People want real pop music, not a fake stuffed with money.

Now the global show business and the recording industry is not even in agony. The agony lasted all zero, and now there has come a complete decomposition, the apogee of artificiality,.

Brian Eno (undoubtedly one of the key masters of the pop order, the gray eminence) recently put it this way in an interview with the Guardian newspaper: “I think the era of the record industry is now coming to an end and exploding like soap bubble. I always knew that sooner or later it would happen. It's like once, before the gas came, the main fuel was whale oil ... And if you traded in whale oil at that time, you could become richest man planets. History does not stand still. The record industry is like whale oil right now. Something has to change."

And Britney? Britney will live. This pop martyr deserves rest. And God bless her on her birthday.

In the history of photography, there are many epic and iconic photographs taken in different time and reflecting different spheres of human activity. In today's list, you'll see 10 iconic kisses captured on film:

Source 10The Actress Who Passionately Kissed a Soldier

In this picture, Marlene Dietrich passionately kisses a soldier who returned home after the Second World War. It was first published in LIFE magazine with the caption "Marlene Dietrich Kisses Homecoming Soldier While Others Hold Her Famous Feet". The photo was taken by Irving Haberman.

Marlene Dietrich is a separate curious story. She is a German actress and singer turned Hollywood star. During the war, Joseph Goebbels offered her a lot of money for filming in Germany, but she rejected all offers. In 1939, the actress received American citizenship.

9. The bride and groom, being virgins, kissed for the first time at the altar


Christians Ryan (Ryan) and Shanna (Shanna) vowed to keep their virginity until the wedding. This also applied. Once they were declared husband and wife, the newlyweds sealed the knot with the most awkward first kiss in the world. You can see it with your own eyes because the kiss was filmed on a reality TV video camera.

Source 8The Women's Football Star Kissed His Wife After Winning the World Cup


After the American team's victory in the final of the Women's World Cup in July 2015, the joyful Abby Wambach, who scored more goals than any other footballer of both sexes in the United States, noticed a familiar face in the crowd of spectators. It was her wife, Sarah Huffman. Wombach ran up to her, and the jubilant couple kissed. The scene was shown on national television.

Source 7The first gay kiss caught on a kiss-cam during an NHL game


Earlier this year, the crowd was driven into a frenzy during a game between the Los Angeles Kings and Toronto Maple Leafs hockey teams, but this was not related to what is happening on ice. When a couple of gay men were caught in the lens of the "kissing camera" and they closed their lips in a kiss, the audience of the Staples Center burst into shouts and applause.

Toronto native Brad Parr and partner Andy Evans are reportedly the first same-sex couple to kiss on the NHL's "kissing cam".

6. The infamous kiss between Madonna, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera on MTV


In 2003, in front of millions of TV viewers and a shocked audience in the hall, Madonna kissed her colleagues, pop stars Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. The queen of pop's improvisation at the 20th annual MTV Video Music Awards instantly shocked celebrities and audiences gathered at New York's Radio City Music Hall, after which the audience recovered from what they saw and roared in approval.

Madonna, who is more than twice older than Britney and Christina, was not even embarrassed by the 6-year-old daughter Lourdes present on stage and her husband Guy Ritchie, who was sitting in the hall, who had repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that his wife, in his opinion, was showing too frankly your body in public places.

The MTV operators immediately shot a close-up of the face of Justin Timberlake (who at that time was the boyfriend of Britney Spears), who experienced a certain feeling of discomfort at that moment.

Source 5The First Public "First Kiss" of Lesbians in the Navy


In 2011, when the "Don't Tell, They Don't Ask" law had already been repealed in the United States (which prohibited homosexuals of both sexes from serving in the army if they did not hide their sexual orientation), two female sailors became the first who merged in the "first kiss" .

Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta of California shared a kiss with her lover, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell of Los Angeles after returning from an 80-day voyage on the USS Oak Hill.

The crowd around the couple yelled and waved flags as Gaeta, 23 (in uniform), kissed Snell, 22, (in black leather jacket).

4. The most famous kiss of politicians


This socialist fraternal kiss, which was photographed during the greeting of Leonid Brezhnev and Eric Honecker, became famous throughout the world. A rare photograph was taken by photographer Regis Bossu in 1979 at the celebrations dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the founding of the GDR. The picture appeared on the pages of magazines around the world with the only signature - "Kiss" ("The Kiss").

Source 3The guy who tried to comfort his girlfriend with a kiss during a riot


In 2011, Scott Jones and his girlfriend Alex Thomas were photographed kissing, surrounded by police, during a fan riot following the Vancouver Canucks' loss in the Stanley Cup Final. Under the spotlights, they looked like they were filming for a movie poster (their embrace was even compared to the iconic image of lovers kissing on the beach in the poster for the 1953 film From Here to Eternity).

However, a video published later showed that the guy and the girl were on the ground after being hit by the police. Jones was trying not so much to make the girl's heart flutter in his arms and passionate kiss, but to keep her under control.

Source 2The Canadian Sailor Who Made Navy History With His First Gay Kiss


Chief Seaman Francis Legare made Canadian Navy history this February when he greeted his partner Corey Vautour after the frigate HMCS Winnipeg docked in Port Victoria. The couple embraced in a kiss of greeting that was the first "first kiss" (sorry for the tautology) between a male sailor returning from a voyage and his male partner.

"First kiss" is a time-honored maritime custom, when a lottery determines which sailor will be the first to be allowed to leave the ship after a long stay at sea in order to his loved one.

This time the choice fell on Lehar, and he got the right to be the first to get off the ship and kiss Votur after 9 months spent away from home.

1. A kiss celebrating the end of World War II


August 14, 1945 Alfred Eisenstaedt (Alfred Eisenstaedt) took a picture of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square, a few minutes after the surrender of Japan.

Two weeks later, this picture was published in LIFE magazine. "VJ Day 1945, Times Square" has become one of the most famous photographs of World War II and is a stark reminder of how people feel when the war is finally over.

Today is one of the most romantic days of the year - kiss day is celebrated all over the world. We believe that this is a great occasion to congratulate your family and friends and kiss them, but we have collected the most unexpected manifestations of love on stage - we definitely did not expect this from these stars!

Madonna (59) and Drake (31)

On the last day of 2015 music festival Coachella in California really surprised its fans. During a joint performance with om, the singer unexpectedly kissed him for everyone! From the reaction of the rapper, the audience understood: this was not part of the show. The recording of the kiss quickly spread all over the Internet and was discussed in the media for a long time.

Charlize Theron (42) and auction winner

Do you know how much a kiss costs? 140 thousand dollars! That is the amount paid by the winner of the auction at the OneXOne charity evening, where the actress put her kiss.

Sandra Bullock (53) and Scarlett Johansson (33)

In 2010, the most talked about news after the MTV Movie Awards was not its results, but the kiss of Sandra Bullock and right on stage. At that time, Scarlett was married to Ryan Reynolds, Bullock's partner in the filming of the comedy The Proposal, so everyone regarded what happened on stage as a well-thought-out joke.

Madonna (59), Britney Spears (36) and Christina Aguilera (37)

Again Madonna, and again MTV Movie Awards! In 2003, on the stage of the award, she, along with Christina Aguilera, performed the hit "Like A Virgin". Then Madonna caused a particularly violent reaction from the audience by kissing both girls. And they, apparently, were not against it!

Rihanna (30) and Britney Spears (36)

It seems that Britney Spears attracted not only Madonna in her time. At the Billboard Music Awards in 2011, she performed for the first time in a duet with Rihanna, who kissed Spears at the end of the performance. And, even though the kiss was far inferior in its effectiveness to what the audience had seen before, it caused a lot of protests and outraged the censors.

Tina Kandelaki (42) and Ksenia Sobchak (36)

Our celebrities are also not left out! In 2007, after the GQ magazine award ceremony, a video was distributed all over the Internet, in which Ksenia Sobchak kisses - and not just in a friendly way! "And what? I liked this kiss, ”Sobchak later said.

Halle Berry (51) and Adrian Brody (45)

In 2003, as last year's winner in the Best Actress nomination, she presented the Oscar to Adrien Brody. But instead of the prepared speech of the winner, those present watched his kiss with Halle Berry, which turned out to be a complete surprise for her! By the way, a couple of years later, Brody tried to repeat this trick with Charlize Theron, but this attempt was unsuccessful.

Alex Luts (39) and Monica Bellucci (53)

We saw another sudden kiss quite recently: at the opening ceremony of the 70th Cannes Film Festival last year, she gave a kiss to French actor Alex Lutz. Fans even thought they were having an affair! Monica later revealed that it was "part of a fun and sensual game" and yet it came as a real surprise to everyone.