Defending Britney
Dec. 2nd, 2008 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae."
- Kurt Vonnegut
I arrived late to the party. In March of 1999, some random sophomore at the Campus Times waved the now-iconic Rolling Stones cover in front of my face and told me that Britney Spears was the future of pop music. I promptly sneered and forgot her name for the next year, as she became the most popular entertainer on the planet.
It seems impossible to imagine now that she could escape anyone's consciousness for a year. But these were the days before iTunes, YouTube and TMZ, and there was fair reason to believe that she was just another recyclable pop starlet in the vein of Tiffany or Clay Aiken. In the late 1990s and early aughts, it was difficult to actually see Spears perform unless you staked out MTV in the vain hope that they might actually show a music video.
Eventually, though, like most heterosexual males between the ages of 12 and 40, I was drawn in by her guileless combination of cheeky innuendo and wounded vulnerability, an obvious but effective evocation of the Virgin-Tease archetype. Unlike Nabakov's Lolita, who calculatedly appealed to man's cynicism, Spears was like your best friend's wayward kid sister, appealing to man's curiosity. The subtextual lust was still illicit, of course, but somehow more defensible.
This formula proved more powerful and enduring than Jessica Simpson's pure-as-the-driven-snow coquettishness, or Christina Aguilera's "hey-look-at-me-I'm-so-bad" schtick, or the "fuck-you-you'll-never-understand-me" angst of Avril Lavigne. And Spears and her handlers expertly wielded this power in the service of multimedia domination.
Her music was actually okay if you weren't listening very hard, like during cardio workouts or homeward commutes. But more conceptually, Britney Spears epitomized mindless entertainment. She was zero-sum; her image distracted us from the music, and the music distracted us from the image.
Not only was her act essentially meaningless, her meaninglessness was essential. It was like a purely superficial form of nihilism: Britney Spears became rich and famous by giving us nothing, and making us want more of it.
I don't remember what kind of critical reception Spears received for her first two albums. My memory and familiarity with the pop-tart genre are limited but I assume that her efforts were not much better or worse than that of her peers. At any rate, formal music reviews were practically irrelevant in the context of such a mass-media juggernaut. Even if a jaded music critic had been compelled to shout "Hey, you suck!" into this echo chamber of awestruck oohs and aahs, it not only would have been like trying to karate-chop a tidal wave, it would have been missing the story.
But somewhere around her "I'm a Slave 4 U" gambit, the relationship between Spears and her audience started to change. Her increasingly sexualized tone simultaneously eroded the Virgin and Tease elements of her persona. Her marginally experimental musical evolution, in which she infused bubblegum pop with more synthetic dance club conventions, alienated a cohort of her fans. The music world itself started looking for The Next Britney, training its focus on younger stars (like Animatronic Miley Cyrus and the plasticine performers of High School Musical) and more talented artists (like the vocally gifted Aguilera and the self-assured Beyonce). Spears, who had once marginalized the entire music industry, was herself professionally marginalized.
Meanwhile, the Entertainment-Industrial Complex exploded. The world learned all too quickly about her superstar excesses, her party-girl indulgences and her tabloid relationship with then-androgynous dreamboat Justin Timberlake. The seeds of a good-old-fashioned American backlash were planted.
Then, within the span of two years: Crossroads, her foray into movies, bombed; her lengthy relationship with Timberlake collapsed; her parents divorced; and September 11, 2001, fundamentally altered American life.
Add to that these facts: this is a girl who grew up dirt-poor in rural Louisiana; she posesses no better than a public high school education; her developmental childhood was fractured by Hollywood; she was forced to be the sole breadwinner for her entire family; and by 2003, the paparazzi -- emboldened and encouraged by the celebrity gossip industry -- was documenting her every single move, every day.
After all that, would it be shocking if she had an acute nervous breakdown? Should we be surprised if she retreated into drugs, alcohol and unhealthy relationships? Isn't it possible that these events triggered a serious mental illness?
But still, people hate her. Her latest album, Circus, has been met with largely negative reviews on its merits, which is entirely appropriate. But within many of these critiques is an undercurrent of personal hostility and mockery that I find distasteful. Why does she bother people so much?
Is it because she is inescapable on our television screens, Web pages and magazine covers? No, it is our guilty indulgence in these items that keep the paparazzi in business. Does anyone really believe that she wants to live her entire life in front of the cameras?
Is it because she's not a very good singer? Are we to fault her for a lack of vocal prowess despite the fact that she makes a very good living as a performer? Does anyone really believe that she doesn't work hard at what she does? (Watch her perform live before you answer.)
Is it because her personal life is such a mess? Is there anyone who didn't make regrettable mistakes in their 20s? Doesn't it seem likely that our own errors in judgment might have been even bigger with limited supervision and an unlimited budget? Who is entitled to judge a young, single mother of two?
Is it because she's too dumb? Too calculating? Too skinny? Too fat? A "bad example," whatever that is? What the hell do we want from her, and why are we asking it of a 27-year old pop star?
My guess: just as America's hopes and dreams were projected onto the inspirational but embryonic figure of Barack Obama, Britney Spears personifies America's fear and self-loathing. She is, popularly imagined, an artificial, superficial, anti-intellectual triumph of style over substance -- born of poverty, built by ambition and awash in sin. Perhaps, as Obama represents the best of what America could be, Spears represents the worst of what America is. And we hate her for it.
Just a theory. I don't know if it's true, but it's certainly not fair.
I am no more qualified to psychoanalyze her than the social pundits are, and I don't know if she really is struggling with mental illness or if she's just another poor little rich girl. But we do know that she's a human being. Don't buy her album if you don't want to. But maybe you could give her a break.
- Kurt Vonnegut
I arrived late to the party. In March of 1999, some random sophomore at the Campus Times waved the now-iconic Rolling Stones cover in front of my face and told me that Britney Spears was the future of pop music. I promptly sneered and forgot her name for the next year, as she became the most popular entertainer on the planet.
It seems impossible to imagine now that she could escape anyone's consciousness for a year. But these were the days before iTunes, YouTube and TMZ, and there was fair reason to believe that she was just another recyclable pop starlet in the vein of Tiffany or Clay Aiken. In the late 1990s and early aughts, it was difficult to actually see Spears perform unless you staked out MTV in the vain hope that they might actually show a music video.
Eventually, though, like most heterosexual males between the ages of 12 and 40, I was drawn in by her guileless combination of cheeky innuendo and wounded vulnerability, an obvious but effective evocation of the Virgin-Tease archetype. Unlike Nabakov's Lolita, who calculatedly appealed to man's cynicism, Spears was like your best friend's wayward kid sister, appealing to man's curiosity. The subtextual lust was still illicit, of course, but somehow more defensible.
This formula proved more powerful and enduring than Jessica Simpson's pure-as-the-driven-snow coquettishness, or Christina Aguilera's "hey-look-at-me-I'm-so-bad" schtick, or the "fuck-you-you'll-never-understand-me" angst of Avril Lavigne. And Spears and her handlers expertly wielded this power in the service of multimedia domination.
Her music was actually okay if you weren't listening very hard, like during cardio workouts or homeward commutes. But more conceptually, Britney Spears epitomized mindless entertainment. She was zero-sum; her image distracted us from the music, and the music distracted us from the image.
Not only was her act essentially meaningless, her meaninglessness was essential. It was like a purely superficial form of nihilism: Britney Spears became rich and famous by giving us nothing, and making us want more of it.
I don't remember what kind of critical reception Spears received for her first two albums. My memory and familiarity with the pop-tart genre are limited but I assume that her efforts were not much better or worse than that of her peers. At any rate, formal music reviews were practically irrelevant in the context of such a mass-media juggernaut. Even if a jaded music critic had been compelled to shout "Hey, you suck!" into this echo chamber of awestruck oohs and aahs, it not only would have been like trying to karate-chop a tidal wave, it would have been missing the story.
But somewhere around her "I'm a Slave 4 U" gambit, the relationship between Spears and her audience started to change. Her increasingly sexualized tone simultaneously eroded the Virgin and Tease elements of her persona. Her marginally experimental musical evolution, in which she infused bubblegum pop with more synthetic dance club conventions, alienated a cohort of her fans. The music world itself started looking for The Next Britney, training its focus on younger stars (like Animatronic Miley Cyrus and the plasticine performers of High School Musical) and more talented artists (like the vocally gifted Aguilera and the self-assured Beyonce). Spears, who had once marginalized the entire music industry, was herself professionally marginalized.
Meanwhile, the Entertainment-Industrial Complex exploded. The world learned all too quickly about her superstar excesses, her party-girl indulgences and her tabloid relationship with then-androgynous dreamboat Justin Timberlake. The seeds of a good-old-fashioned American backlash were planted.
Then, within the span of two years: Crossroads, her foray into movies, bombed; her lengthy relationship with Timberlake collapsed; her parents divorced; and September 11, 2001, fundamentally altered American life.
Add to that these facts: this is a girl who grew up dirt-poor in rural Louisiana; she posesses no better than a public high school education; her developmental childhood was fractured by Hollywood; she was forced to be the sole breadwinner for her entire family; and by 2003, the paparazzi -- emboldened and encouraged by the celebrity gossip industry -- was documenting her every single move, every day.
After all that, would it be shocking if she had an acute nervous breakdown? Should we be surprised if she retreated into drugs, alcohol and unhealthy relationships? Isn't it possible that these events triggered a serious mental illness?
But still, people hate her. Her latest album, Circus, has been met with largely negative reviews on its merits, which is entirely appropriate. But within many of these critiques is an undercurrent of personal hostility and mockery that I find distasteful. Why does she bother people so much?
Is it because she is inescapable on our television screens, Web pages and magazine covers? No, it is our guilty indulgence in these items that keep the paparazzi in business. Does anyone really believe that she wants to live her entire life in front of the cameras?
Is it because she's not a very good singer? Are we to fault her for a lack of vocal prowess despite the fact that she makes a very good living as a performer? Does anyone really believe that she doesn't work hard at what she does? (Watch her perform live before you answer.)
Is it because her personal life is such a mess? Is there anyone who didn't make regrettable mistakes in their 20s? Doesn't it seem likely that our own errors in judgment might have been even bigger with limited supervision and an unlimited budget? Who is entitled to judge a young, single mother of two?
Is it because she's too dumb? Too calculating? Too skinny? Too fat? A "bad example," whatever that is? What the hell do we want from her, and why are we asking it of a 27-year old pop star?
My guess: just as America's hopes and dreams were projected onto the inspirational but embryonic figure of Barack Obama, Britney Spears personifies America's fear and self-loathing. She is, popularly imagined, an artificial, superficial, anti-intellectual triumph of style over substance -- born of poverty, built by ambition and awash in sin. Perhaps, as Obama represents the best of what America could be, Spears represents the worst of what America is. And we hate her for it.
Just a theory. I don't know if it's true, but it's certainly not fair.
I am no more qualified to psychoanalyze her than the social pundits are, and I don't know if she really is struggling with mental illness or if she's just another poor little rich girl. But we do know that she's a human being. Don't buy her album if you don't want to. But maybe you could give her a break.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Oops, she did it again
Date: 2008-12-03 04:34 pm (UTC)That said, she doesn't behave like someone who's looking for people to give her a break, what with various comebacks and TV interviews and documentaries.
She's pursued a life in the public eye, to such an extent that she really doesn't know anything else (for which her parents bear at least partial responsibility). In fact, Spears has held defiantly to such a life when it would have been far more beneficial to her and her children to have retreated from L.A. -- celebrity ground-zero for paparazzi and gossip rags -- to get her shit together.
A story earlier this year in The Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200804/britney-spears) describes how she alternately courts and spurns the paparazzi. Based on that and other stories (such as this one, from Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/18310562/cover_story_the_tragedy_of_britney_spears), I'd say it's entirely possible that Spears herself doesn't know what she wants, apart from attention.
I don't mean to imply that she deserves our scorn or hatred or loathing for that -- she doesn't. But continuing to court fame in the face of her various troubles isn't the sort of choice that engenders much public sympathy.
Either way, though, it won't take long for "Circus" to sell a million copies.
Re: Oops, she did it again
Date: 2008-12-03 06:30 pm (UTC)To some extent, at least, she HAS to be in LA or whatever to do her job, whether it's consulting with producers or laying down tracks or working with backup dancers. And promotion is part of that job, and I don't think she deserves any more scorn than anyone who goes on Leno or Letterman to hawk their stupid movie.
But in a larger sense, I don't think anyone should feel obligated or forced or hounded to "go away". She's allowed to live wherever she wants, and if she wants to live in Hollywood then she should be able to do so without being made to feel like a caged animal.
I skimmed the Atlantic Monthly article you linked to, and I don't see anything that suggests Spears is having a good time with the paparazzi (Adnan Ghalib notwithstanding). Her recent documentary confirms this daily terror, in my mind.
And even if she is in some way courting this attention, or attention in general, her actions seem symptomatic of a fairly severe mental imbalance. Maybe we're in no position to help her up, but we can start by not knocking her down.
Re: Oops, she did it again
Date: 2008-12-03 07:14 pm (UTC)Re: Oops, she did it again
Date: 2008-12-03 07:30 pm (UTC)Not that you do this. I actually think you have a bit of a crush on her. Admit it, you're The Womanizer, aren't you?
Wouldn't that be an interesting superhero? The Womanizer: able to use his supernatural charm and good looks to bend women's wills. It would be like Aquaman, only way better.
Re: Oops, she did it again
Date: 2008-12-03 10:55 pm (UTC)Now I want to be The Womanizer for Halloween next year. Would he wear a cape?
Re: Oops, she did it again
Date: 2008-12-04 01:36 am (UTC)Re: Oops, she did it again
Date: 2008-12-04 08:16 pm (UTC)