This past few days we have seen more invasive pictures of Britney. But instead of her (ho ho) bald head or her even balder (ho ho) fanny, the pictures show her being wheeled out on a stretcher. Wheeled out from her huge mansion on the most exclusive part of Beverly Hills after a dispute over her children.Aren't we tired of the bullying yet? Do we laugh at this? this rich bitch? Have you ever done something rash and woken up to regret it? The next day, don't we want to forget it and hide away? We feel shame and it burns our cheeks as we see our friends and coworkers again. We laugh, nervously, or apologise. Forget it, they might say. Or we avoid those people, those whom we can't face. We want the world to swallow us whole; not chop up our embarrassment up for easy digestion.
And I know she's made millions from it. From fame. We buy her products. And she profited it from it, so she owes us, right? Fame has become an open invitation into celebrities lives. We can come in, make ourselves at home. Not only that, we can go through your rubbish and take pictures of your children. And when you ask us to stop and leave, we refuse and feel indignant. You invited us, we say, and therefore you only have yourself to blame.
But Britney's been in the game long enough, surely. But when is it enough? We don't know we've had enough, until we've had more than enough. She will probably have the pleasure of dying before a phalanx of hungry cameras and the one time princess of pop will have no regal protection. Only then might we say how terrible it all is. Right when the guilt sets in.
The box is of celebrity is open and has formed a co-dependent addiction. It seems she cannot break free. Can you, weak and pathetic general public, reject the cult that you've joined without knowing?
9 comments:
Would you agree that it is all but impossible to avoid any more?
Celeb photos (good and bad) used to be the sole obsession of Heat and OK! and you had to actively buy them to see the juicy stuff.
Whereas now even the free papers on the Tube are plastered with upskirt shots of drunk young model-singer-actresses attempting to fall into/out of cars. If I pick one up to read the football results, am I tacitly condoning their presence therein?
I was also about to say that basically someone is going to have to die in front of the paparazzi before we stop. And then I caught sight of the Daily Express ("The World's Greatest Newspaper", note) and its daily coverage of the Diana inquest.
Oh.
It is difficult. I feel sorry for her certainly. The difficulty is her willingness to play the game. You don't have to live your life in front of the camera. What is Ben Affleck or J-Lo doing this week? She's rich and sucessful. Why did she feel the need to keep feeding the beast? My guess is that good press is like a drug. You want it bad.
Everyone, pretty much, wants tone famous. But the biggest thing nobody talks about with it is the loneliness. Who can Britney trust now? She certainly shouldn't trust herself.
I totally agree that you can't avoid it anymore. Reading some of the other editorials yesterday, one said that only the FT was Britney free. I'd also agree that it's impossible to avoid, but I say if you don't like it, then you should make it apparent. Some free sheets are worse than others, and though I wouldn't dare say you condone what happened, you could minimise the impact with informed choices. (You probably would never buy the Daily Star, would you? Even for the footie scores?)
The thing about willingness to play the game doesn't apply in this case, which is what makes it so much worse - unless I'm so naive to think this is massive publicity campaign where she pretended to be strapped to a bed and carted away to a hospital or her publicist is so uncaring that he/she called the press at the same time as an ambulance? Perhaps a better metaphor than an open invitation is being seduced by the Devil. Seduced by the riches and attention before BLAM. You're in some kind of personal hell.
Another thing I read in yesterday was the fact that Britney has been famous for most of her life, performing when she was very young to joining the Mickey Mouse club at 11 and beyond. (Interestingly, Justin Timberlake was also in the same club, but has somehow remained more stable than his one-time girlfriend.) Perhaps clutching for fame is second nature for her. Perhaps it's all she knows now.
This article from BBC is interesting.
I have to admit that I did originally read this as a call to arms to stop Britney Spears from rapping on her next record.
That's an interesting article and I agree the public has to face up the fact that it happens cos it sells. But then again, I just saw Hugh's Chicken Run and if the consumer isn't given the choice, then obviously they only go for one thing.
A Britney rap? How would that go, I wonder...
I wrote about the chicken situation on my regular blog: Free Range - I'd be interested to read your thoughts.
But she is now dating a paparazzo, is she not?
The irony eh? Perhaps it Stockholm Syndrome or something similar? Perhaps the paparazzi, screwing her for so long figuratively, are now screwing her literally.
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