Femme fatale pop-stars reborn through Science Fiction inspired music videos

Gaga. Spears. Perry. All female innovators of modern pop music. But what else connects them?

Oddly enough, it's now science fiction.

In the past two months, each have released a highly strange, and highly sci-fi music video.

Katy Perry's "E.T.," Lady Gaga's "Born this Way," and Britney Spears' "Hold it Against Me" use a variety of science fiction nods and themes to entertain audiences and promote their songs.

While the songs themselves, excluding a few obvious parts in "E.T.," aren't even science fiction in terms of lyrics, when it comes to the visuals, they're out of this world.

A linking theme for several of these artists is their dissenters refuse to take them seriously. Pop radio doesn't tend to thrive on real issues, unless maybe you count alcohol poisoning.

But when it comes to sci-fi, it's all about metaphors and social commentaries on the state of human existence.

And the metaphor for these femme fatales is rebirth.

Katy Perry's "E.T.," releasing last week, begins with an aerial camera soaring over a dark world of scrap and trash as Hal Kemp's jazz standard "Where in the World" plays in the background.

The view focuses on a small robot lying among the heap.

Sound familiar? Well that's probably because it's been done at least twice before.

Both the movie "WALL-E" and the video game "BioShock" have tried this same technique.

Result: The world is a messed up place in need of something. What can Katy Perry give it? Sexy aliens.

She twists and turns in space, mutating to a slowly more humanistic alien, while Kanye is rapping up in his space pod.

After crashing to earth, she finds a robot who transforms into an albino human.

They're obviously in love.

But the world has become bathed in light now, so love must have healed everything!

Also, Perry has deer legs.

That seemed pertinent.

"Born this Way" would need its own entire article to describe its weirdness. But in small summary, Gaga somehow births the perfect race, but turns out it's actually inadvertently evil.

Then there are zombies, alien dancers and mosh pits. And Madonna homages. But from what I can tell, the point of the video comes down to, we must live and flourish no matter how we are born (or created).

This is reinforced by the appearance of a unicorn at the beginning and end, which nods to the symbol from the film "Blade Runner" whose theme followed the same thought.

Spears' "Hold it Against Me" opens with a comet shooting toward the earth. Upon impact, a stock city flashes into beautiful lights signaling Spears and "Hold it Against Me" have arrived.

The super science-fictiony parts don't show through until Spears starts freaking out and the video jumps from dance party to "trapped in the Matrix."

Surrounded by screens, like Neo's meeting with the Architect, Spears begins shooting colored paint from her gloves, these streaming presentations of her previous music videos.

There's also a fun battle between two Britney's, one in a red dress and the other in blue. Can anyone say red pill vs. blue pill?

So, while it is a bit of a stretch, Spears is fighting between fantasy and reality; What she is now, and all of her previous selves.

But the result is one final, confident Britney, performing for her masses. In essence she shed her previous images and was reborn.

Each of these artists overcome their adversity and are reborn into beautiful confident creatures.

And while there is a certain art and technique to these productions, the real question is, is the use of science fiction just a gimmick?

Perry's almost certainly is, as just the name "E.T." – calling on its movie roots – demands a sci-fi video.

Spears didn't need it, but with the decisive electronic direction she has taken with new album Femme Fatale, appealing to the rave geeks can't be a bad thing. And Gaga is just Gaga.

The world has come to expect nothing less than her monster's ball.

So, good for science fiction for getting its mainstream time to shine. But like the travesty that was the "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," I could do with less nerd shout-outs and more story.

I like interesting music videos. But if I wanted to see a science fiction train wreck, I'd just look for William Shatner.