Speaking of Britney Spears (well, I did mention her yesterday), I’ve been thinking about her head-shaving escapade last weekend and the way the media has reacted to it.
I know, I know… it’s a lame non-story that everyone is sick of, and I imagine at least one of my celebrity-contemptuous Loyal Readers just rolled his eyes and clicked off to some other site. Still, I just keep coming back to the subject in my mind, like a loose tooth that I feel compelled to wiggle with my tongue. The truth is, as ridiculous and messed-up a person as she seems to be, I really do care about what’s happening to her, at least in as much as I care about any human being who’s obviously in a whole world of confusion and hurt. I feel sorry for the girl. And I feel genuinely angry at the way the entertainment “news” media — i.e., all the television tabloid and gossip shows — are exploiting her and that other hapless train wreck of a human being, Anna Nicole Smith, for the sake of sensationalistic headlines and, presumably, higher ratings.
Look, I’m not defending Britney’s actions or trying to say she’s really a wonderful girl who’s been woefully misunderstood. I don’t know what kind of a girl she is. And neither does anyone else, possibly not even herself. Which is why I cringe whenever I see Mary Hart or one of the other TV gossips start going on about her “meltdown” or “breakdown” or whatever inflammatory word they’re using to describe it today. As far as I’m concerned, they don’t have any business speculating about her mental health or lack thereof. True, Britney’s been reckless and using exceedingly poor judgment lately, and, true, she probably does deserve to have her kids taken away from her until she grows the hell up. But has she really done anything all that different from a lot of other messed-up twentysomething women? A few years back, the Girlfriend and I were friendly with a couple of young ladies who were doing foolish things very much like Britney is currently doing, only without the unblinking eyes of the cameras recording everything and broadcasting it to a ravenous audience. We American celebrity watchers love to build up heroes, and we love to tear ’em down just as much, if not more. Most of the time, we seem to think they’re superhumans who don’t suffer from the same frailties we ordinary people do, but when they do start to show some signs of weakness — of ordinariness — we pile on like sharks who’ve smelled some particularly fragrant chum. And I think that sucks hard.
My own personal take on this story is that Britney isn’t crazy so much as searching. She doesn’t know who the hell Britney Spears actually is, and all this wacky shit she’s doing is an effort to find out, or at least to silence the voices of confusion for a while. How could she know who she is, when her persona, her career, and her entire life has been manufactured, managed, and manipulated for her by others since she was a small child? Again, I’m not making excuses for her; I just wish the paparazzi and the tabloids would lay the hell off and let her figure out her shit in peace.
Craig Ferguson, the host of The Late, Late Show and one of the wittiest guys currently on the airwaves, showed a lot of class, thoughtfulness, and empathy on his show the other night when he announced that he wouldn’t do any more Britney jokes, and then explained his reasons why. I wish more people in the media would follow his lead, for Britney, for Anna, and for all of our fallen celebrity heroes who may be behaving like total asses, but are still human beings deserving of a little human compassion…
