In response to a salon.com article --
(http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/02/23/britney_meltdown/index.html)
A few words....
Britney Spears may not be important, but our cultural reaction to her rise and subsequent fall certainly are. We are a nation of angry, cynical, gossiping, condescending, self-important teenagers. And yes, I mean “we,” because this is the fishbowl we are all swimming in; no one is above it all, no one is looking in from the outside; when there is crap in the cultural water, we all suck it into our mouths and pretend not to taste it. We are spoiled, self-righteous, unsympathetic and unmotivated. We work at jobs that contribute less to the greater good than to the bottom line, yet we feel the right to point fingers at everyone else and accuse them of not helping.
Whatever Rebecca Traister may or may not have written columns about in the past, whatever the Broadsheet may or may not have done for feminism, she is right about Britney and our collective reaction to Britney. We, as a nation, bought her records or allowed them to be sold without protest; we, as a nation, picked up the Rolling Stone with her sexualized, almost soft-core photographs or decided against writing the editors to protest. We, as a collective body of people who know better or who should know better, allowed her look and her music to be sold to young girls as the ideal to which they should all aspire. We all took advantage of the chance she gave us to bask in the glow of her exploding virginity or each of us, in our pursuit of unimportant things, did absolutely nothing about it. None of us, not a single one, has the right to watch it all unfold, then point fingers at everyone but himself.
Britney Spears is important because her story shows once again that money means more to our nation than humanity. Britney was allowed to sell sex to 12-year-old girls and 15 to 50-year-old boys because it made a lot of people an obscene amount of money. And now, she’s not allowed sympathy because she has money and we want it for ourselves. We’re jealous of the success that seemed to come to her so easily -- she merely sings for outrageous sums of money while we work 9 to 5 for less than we're worth -- so she will not have our sympathy. There are those among us who would feel sorry for her if she were a waitress and Oprah cried over her on national television, but, no, she has a mansion (the slut), she has hot cars (the whore), she has obnoxiously expensive shoes (the trash)…let her beg for our sympathy. Let her fall until she has as little as we have and when in our egotistical pursuit to bring her down, she has been proven beneath us, then we will feel sorry for her.
We, as a nation, have treated Britney shamefully. We have praised her for dangling her innocence in front of us like a carrot; we have given her millions of dollars for dancing in her panties on MTV so that teenaged boys of all ages could get a quick wank; we have worn her hairstyle and bought her plaid miniskirts and interviewed her with gum in her mouth; we have baited her with questions we knew she couldn’t answer graciously; we have made her a commodity; we have made a pastime out of watching, waiting for her to fall; we have collectively shouted at her that she’s a bad mother for almost dropping her son, while forgetting that that moment of sheer parental terror is as much apart of motherhood as the pain of childbirth; we have sucked the usefulness out of her, and now that she’s no longer Britney-o-Matic, vending cash and gossip columns, we will throw her away. Of course Britney has made some bad decisions and of course she's put herself where she is, but now that she's there, why do find her unworthy of our help?
Last week three climbers were stranded on Mt. Hood and we, as a nation, held our breath for their safe return, but none of us stopped to say that they had brought themselves to that place, that they were adults, responsible for their own actions. Some of us prayed, others hoped, still others wrote letters of support, because that's what we do, we take care of each other; in our finest hours, that's what makes us human. Britney Spears may be incredibly rich, she may technically be an adult, but Craig Ferguson's right, she's a baby; not in some misogynistic way where no 25 year old woman can be expected to be strong, because of course they can be, but in that way most of us can become at any age when we're physically sick or incapable and we just need looking after. How about treating her the way we'd all treat a 25 year old friend or sister whose life just got to be too much? Or the way we treat stranded mountain climbers who aren't delivering transplant kidneys or curing cancer, just enjoying themselves and their time outdoors? Why not simply offer compassion or offer help, rather than gathering around like some sub-human species, chattering and throwing sticks at the weak one?
A few words....
Britney Spears may not be important, but our cultural reaction to her rise and subsequent fall certainly are. We are a nation of angry, cynical, gossiping, condescending, self-important teenagers. And yes, I mean “we,” because this is the fishbowl we are all swimming in; no one is above it all, no one is looking in from the outside; when there is crap in the cultural water, we all suck it into our mouths and pretend not to taste it. We are spoiled, self-righteous, unsympathetic and unmotivated. We work at jobs that contribute less to the greater good than to the bottom line, yet we feel the right to point fingers at everyone else and accuse them of not helping.
Whatever Rebecca Traister may or may not have written columns about in the past, whatever the Broadsheet may or may not have done for feminism, she is right about Britney and our collective reaction to Britney. We, as a nation, bought her records or allowed them to be sold without protest; we, as a nation, picked up the Rolling Stone with her sexualized, almost soft-core photographs or decided against writing the editors to protest. We, as a collective body of people who know better or who should know better, allowed her look and her music to be sold to young girls as the ideal to which they should all aspire. We all took advantage of the chance she gave us to bask in the glow of her exploding virginity or each of us, in our pursuit of unimportant things, did absolutely nothing about it. None of us, not a single one, has the right to watch it all unfold, then point fingers at everyone but himself.
Britney Spears is important because her story shows once again that money means more to our nation than humanity. Britney was allowed to sell sex to 12-year-old girls and 15 to 50-year-old boys because it made a lot of people an obscene amount of money. And now, she’s not allowed sympathy because she has money and we want it for ourselves. We’re jealous of the success that seemed to come to her so easily -- she merely sings for outrageous sums of money while we work 9 to 5 for less than we're worth -- so she will not have our sympathy. There are those among us who would feel sorry for her if she were a waitress and Oprah cried over her on national television, but, no, she has a mansion (the slut), she has hot cars (the whore), she has obnoxiously expensive shoes (the trash)…let her beg for our sympathy. Let her fall until she has as little as we have and when in our egotistical pursuit to bring her down, she has been proven beneath us, then we will feel sorry for her.
We, as a nation, have treated Britney shamefully. We have praised her for dangling her innocence in front of us like a carrot; we have given her millions of dollars for dancing in her panties on MTV so that teenaged boys of all ages could get a quick wank; we have worn her hairstyle and bought her plaid miniskirts and interviewed her with gum in her mouth; we have baited her with questions we knew she couldn’t answer graciously; we have made her a commodity; we have made a pastime out of watching, waiting for her to fall; we have collectively shouted at her that she’s a bad mother for almost dropping her son, while forgetting that that moment of sheer parental terror is as much apart of motherhood as the pain of childbirth; we have sucked the usefulness out of her, and now that she’s no longer Britney-o-Matic, vending cash and gossip columns, we will throw her away. Of course Britney has made some bad decisions and of course she's put herself where she is, but now that she's there, why do find her unworthy of our help?
Last week three climbers were stranded on Mt. Hood and we, as a nation, held our breath for their safe return, but none of us stopped to say that they had brought themselves to that place, that they were adults, responsible for their own actions. Some of us prayed, others hoped, still others wrote letters of support, because that's what we do, we take care of each other; in our finest hours, that's what makes us human. Britney Spears may be incredibly rich, she may technically be an adult, but Craig Ferguson's right, she's a baby; not in some misogynistic way where no 25 year old woman can be expected to be strong, because of course they can be, but in that way most of us can become at any age when we're physically sick or incapable and we just need looking after. How about treating her the way we'd all treat a 25 year old friend or sister whose life just got to be too much? Or the way we treat stranded mountain climbers who aren't delivering transplant kidneys or curing cancer, just enjoying themselves and their time outdoors? Why not simply offer compassion or offer help, rather than gathering around like some sub-human species, chattering and throwing sticks at the weak one?