In Defense of Britney

[dramaqueen_23]

I saw the now infamous Britney Spears' VMA performance and read an overview of the criticism, courtesy of the Yahoo!Canada homepage. If you need to take a moment to laugh at me, I understand. No, go ahead...I'll wait

Comments

[hardcormier]

OK hang on, there's a huge difference between suggesting that someone deserved to be raped because they were wearing "provocative" clothing and arguing that it is legitimate to mock a celebrity based on the costume they wore during a televised performance.

The Britney wardrobe team made the conscious decision to put her on stage in undergarments and fishnets designed to draw attention to her figure. This was a conscious decision on their part. Britney's entire look is and has always been about the shock value of her jail bait glitter girl outfits that invite scandalized comment from the press. For anyone to turn around at this stage in the game and suggest that her wardrobe and figure should no longer be open for discussion and that we should be focusing our critical attention on her "talents" as a "performer" is pure hypocracy.

Any misfortune that Britney feels she may have suffered at the hands of the media is entirely of her own making. If the lesson learned here is that you can't have a baby and expect to cavort around on stage acting like a teenage sex kitten without someone calling you on it then so be it.

[dramaqueen_23]

First of all, I think you underestimate the amount of power someone like Britney Spears has had. She was something like sixteen when she shot to superstardom. How many of us at that age would have had to wisdom to advocate in our own best interests in the face of producers, managers, agents etc...? But I digress.

Media scrunity of celebrities' bodies, particularly females is par for the course. Everybody knowns that. But that criticism is harsh and destructive. Because you and I both know that a layer a stomach fat (which, FYI even most teenage girls have) shouldn't stop someone from feeling like a sex kitten, showing off her body (if she wants to), or wearing lingerie. *I've* got more flab than Spears' does. Does that make it "okay" for people to call me fat when I wear a bikini in public?

I'm not saying I expect that to change. But in the same way that Spears' (and/or her production team) had to know she'd get flamed, maybe journalists who are mean and hypocritical should expect to be called on their mean hypocrisy.

[hardcormier]

"But in the same way that Spears' (and/or her production team) had to know she'd get flamed, maybe journalists who are mean and hypocritical should expect to be called on their mean hypocrisy."

That I can agree with.

[sinnick]

Totally. One shouldn't feel pity to Britney (or at least, her handlers), who uses the media just as much as they use her. There are enough celebrities out there who manage to avoid the limelight while maintaining an A-list career to prove that those who don't could if they wanted to. Constant tabloid appearances must be by choice, to some extent.

But that doesn't excuse the double standards of the entertainment media, and their attitude towards beauty and self-image.

The point? You can bitch about the media without necessarily siding with the overpriviledged celebrity fuckwad too. It's win-win.

[dramaqueen_23]

I can? SWEET!