First, let me apologize for the title of this piece. I hate it that I have a Britney Spears problem. I never wanted to type her name. I never wanted to be associated with her in any way.
But alas, the ditzy dame is stalking me.
I was going to say "ditzy blonde," but I'm not sure how you describe a hairless woman. Is she now a "ditzy bald?" Like everything else associated with her, this is repulsive. I even hate the way she spells her name.
My Britney Spears problem can be simply put: I want to put as much distance between the two of us as possible. And it isn't possible. She is omnipresent. She is more ubiquitous than CO2 emissions. She is part of the air I breath, the water I drink and the food I eat. She's as common as sodium, cornstarch and trans fats. I can choose to not eat Hostess Twinkies, but I can't avoid Britney. To move anywhere in our society is to encounter her several times a day.
I have always had a comfortable relationship with popular culture. I grin at the Ditty Bops and rock to the White Stripes. I know what's shakin' on Survivor. I find Borat a scream. I'm even fairly tolerant of Paris Hilton. I'd prefer that she would not share my planet, but when the media thrusts her in front of me I can grant that she is ornamental in a slutty sort of way. And if you've seen her tapes, it is clear she is not entirely without skills.
But I try to maintain some standards. I would rather not hear another word about Justin Timberlake or most of the American Idol wannabes. It offends my sensibilities that I even know who K-Fed is; in a better universe, I would be innocent of any such knowledge. I'm proud of having avoided Anna Nicole Smith, dead and alive, and I can say with confidence that I did not father her child (apparently few American males can make that claim). And yet I know far more about her than I would choose to know.
Above all, what drives me batty is my inability to escape Britney Spears.
She is not pretty.
She is not sexy.
She is not intelligent.
She is not artistic.
She is not talented.
She is not commendable for any personal virtue.
She is not in any way whatsover "interesting" to me.
It seems to me that the appropriate response for me is not to hurl curses at her or to wish her dead. The appropriate response is to ignore her. I'm happy letting Britney do her thing, whatever in hell that might be, if she'll let me do my thing, which is to live a life that is totally devoid of Britney.
Accordingly, I have tried to make my personal living space a Britney-free zone. In this one home and in this one person's brain, Britney is banned. I don't want to see or hear about her boyfriends, her political views, her marriages, her virginity, her driving habits, her panties, her drug habits or her latest hair cut. It's gonna be NO BRITNEY, 24-7, 365!
Ah, but just try. Maybe you have better luck than I, but Britney stalks me.
If I open a newspaper to read about the latest flailings of the Iraq conflict, there is a headline on the second page about Britney. I have enough discipline to avoid "reading" it, but I cannot help seeing it. I haven't brushed my teeth yet, and already Britney is slipping into my brain like some parasitic worm in a science fiction movie.
If I watch ANY television, Britney is all over me like a cheap suit. It is easy to avoid gossip shows like "Entertainment Tonight," but that's no good at all. Like a demented jack-in-the-box, Britney pops up at the least predictable moments on shows I thought had more sense. She's pervasive and unescapable, like a pandemic.
I'm generally safe listening to radio, but not perfectly. By sticking to National Public Radio, I can go hours without having Britney parachute into my world again, perhaps getting drunk in public or treating her baby like a crash test dummy. And yet even there, I can't totally avoid her. Some of the hipper NPR shows can't avoid the temptation to mention her cursed name.
If I go to the grocery store, try as I might, I cannot keep Britney away. They won't let me pay for my groceries unless I go through the checkout queus, and there she awaits me. I'm usually not able to stand there without being in sight of some magazine or tabloid, and "some" is too many if I'm to keep my distance from Britney. The typical checkout lane puts you in sight of up to a dozen Britney images and headlines. A "good" day is when she isn't on EVERY magazine cover, with or without hair, stoned or sober, with or without panties.
They say the hardest thing to do is to NOT think of a white elephant. Nonsense! I can go weeks without thinking of white elephants. The hardest thing on earth is to make it through one single day without learning one new thing about Britney Spears.
That is my challenge. Any day I get through Britney-free is a tiny victory. I rarely win. Do I ask for too much? Am I being idealistic? Should my goal in life be to make it through an HOUR that is totally Britney-free?
Has it come to this?
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Comments: 26
The thing I don't understand (and maybe this should scare me, for the world) is WHY she is even "interesting?" Why does ANYbody care? She clearly isn't doing anything that a well-balanced human being would want to copy... so all I can surmise is that her presence serves as some kind of horrible warning as to "what not to do" with your life.
As for Paris Hilton, she's almost as ubiquitous as Britney... but on some level I suppose she should be admired for her ability to simply be a "Professional Celebrity," as I cannot think of a single thing she has actually DONE, to warrant celebrity status.
From where I sit hunched over the tabloids, not much more American (or car-crash-can't-look-away riveting) than that.
That's quite a long article for someone who 'doesn't want to think about her'. All I can really say about the issue is that I thank god no one was watching me while I stumbled about trying to find out who I was and made all my stupid mistakes in my youth. I can't imagine what that does to a young person's psyche.
I like your generosity. You suggest that a great many people would have messy lives if their lives were as public as Britney's. Do you honestly think that? I think she sets a pretty high standard for being foolish and screwed up, and the most obvious reason is probably that she is an addict. But again, I like you for sympathizing with someone who is terribly immature and VERY much in the public eye.
You go on to say that making the stupid mistakes of youth in public is probably difficult for a person like Britney, and I agree. I would note that she makes mistakes on a spectacular scale and never seems to learn. She's truly messed up. You and I could probably agree that the burden of being so famous is one major reason for that. She did seek fame, but let's admit that fame brings with it a nasty price that nobody is smart enough in advance to see. As bright as he was, even John Lennon was shocked at what the price can be for fame.
Finally, I think you fail to see that I'm not mad at Britney and not really thinking that much about her. She is a symbol. My article is meant to be a light-hearted complaint about the way contemporary media keep shoving these uninteresting people in front of us. My Anna Nicole Smith problem is about as bad as my Britney problem, and all of these pseudo-celebrities are a special hallmark of this age. I wouldn't wish on Britney the fate that Anna Nicole Smith had. I just wish she could live her life in a place where I didn't have to encounter it several times a day.
I knew from the beginning that this was a likely outcome. Being a child star is tough sledding in later life, about half of them have eventual breakdowns due to their vanished youth. It is sad really, especially for the two kids who should not have been born until she found out if she was capable of growing up.
Just so you understand, I don't enjoy seeing this poor wretch pass through life as if it were an auto destruction derby. I feel sorry for her. And that pain is not something I welcom in my life. I'd rather reserve my sympathy for AIDS and Katrina victims.
I don't dislike Britney for making such a mess of being a child star grown up. If I dislike anyone it is all the cynical exectutives of the media conglomerates that feed off people like Britney and essentially encourage them on into their next excessive gesture.
That is the point I was making.. she isn't a symbol. She's a person. I do sympathize with being weary of hearing about what color socks [insert celebrity name here] is wearing today, but the real blame lies with a Jerry-Springer-addicted society that is, by large, obsessed with gossip, drama and disaster. There are, as always, those (like you and I and some others here) that are on the outskirts of that, but Britney wouldn't be 'out there' and everywhere if the masses didn't demand it.
I applaud you for not being a mindless, salivating gossip drone ;) There are so many other things in the world more significant than the red carpet.
"I don't dislike Britney for making such a mess of being a child star grown up. If I dislike anyone it is all the cynical exectutives of the media conglomerates that feed off people like Britney and essentially encourage them on into their next excessive gesture."
*slinks away in shame* ;)
I don't think anyone batted an eyelash when I shaved my head. (Thanks goodness!) (By the way, my hair is super easy to take care of now and I can't imagine growing it back. How empowering to not care about my hair!)
After all the latest bruhaha about her downward spiral everyone kept asking, "can she make a comeback? Will her career survive?" I found myself thinking that I didn't care if she pulled through or not, I didn't even care if she spontaneously combusted, I wanted her to JUST. GO. AWAY.
Think I'll get my wish?
Now yes she is out of control but damn you guys she is a product of our entertainment industry. OOPs I did it again!!!
And, obviously, Britney isn't my problem. It is the current state of popular media. Unless I choose to live a cloistered life, it seems I must swim in waters that include Britney, Anna Nicole and Paris. As an intensely political person who pays close attention to current events, part of the price I must pay is sharing my life with all sorts of people I'd rather not hear a thing about.
For me, Dubya's travails are entirely different, for they occur in the context of a grand drama that relates past, present and future in a way not true of anything poor Britney does. I choose to bring GWB into my intellectual life because I am so deeply offended and frightened by him and what he represents. It just seems odd and pathetic that living a single Brittney-free day seems such a victory!