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

[listersgirl]

That's interesting - I haven't seen the clip, and only read things in passing, but most of the commentary I saw focused on the fact that she seemed to be sleepwalking through the performance. Well, and the fact that she was basically wearing her underwear. This is why I would never want to be famous - people will comment on your body and your looks no matter what you do. There's no way to win.

[dramaqueen_23]

sugarmommaless and I think she took sort of tranquilizer before the show. Something that allowed her to remember her choreography but sapped all her energy.

[pescana]

That's what it seemed like to me too, especially after I saw the video clip of them rehearsing. She was not as badly prepared as it looked during the actual performance, but something went wrong. I didn't like her outfit much, but she looks pretty good. As 1happygirl and I agreed, we'd be thrilled to be in that kind of shape. She just seemed petrified or lost.

here's the clip

[sugarmommaless]

http://ca.video.yahoo.com/video/play?gid=107460&b=0&vid=1101279&p=

[sinnick]

Agreed. Nothing makes me more sinnickal than the entertainment media when they try to tackle the "weight issue" of celebrities. Like when they go on about how beautiful so-and-so looks now that she's Lost All The Weight, and then in the same breath express insipid sorrow about whosit's anorexia.

I actually thought Britney looked pretty cute. Or I would have, if it hadn't been for the drunken stagger, and total lack of enthusiasm.

[dramaqueen_23]

Exactly. According to entertainment media, women have an acceptable weight window of exactly five pounds. Otherwise you're anorexic or too fat to live.

[anglaisepaon]

A woman in my office made me so angry yesterday. I mentioned that the scrutiny about Britney's body was sad (for the reasons you mentioned above), and was told that if she chose to dress sexy and strut around to a song about sex, she deserved being told if she looked out of shape.

Because only really skinny girls are allowed to be sensual, you know. GRrrr!

[dramaqueen_23]

Argh! That makes me SO angry, too. Sometimes it feels that no matter what your body looks like, it's justification for some sort of scathing criticism.

[xiz111]

Yeah, that whole superficial element of celebrity has driven me nuts for years. As someone who's struggled with weight for quite a while, the notion of being judged based on whether you fall into the ideal BMI range or not seems incredibly harsh.

I intensely dislike the self-loathing world that the whole celebrity culture creates. How someone like Britney spears who's gone from cute teenybopper to twice-divorced, mother-of-two, recovering alcoholic, all before the age of 26, wouldn't be damaged by that environment, is beyond me.

[hardcormier]

Dude, she's a twice-divorced, mother-of-two, recovering alcoholic, all before the age of 26. I think that counts as evidence of being damaged by her environment.

[xiz111]

Well, yeah ...
That's what I meant. The result of being immersed in such a destructive environment is her alcholism, marital troubles and other sad behaviour.

[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

[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.