There is even an ‘anti-anti-Britney’
web site. Founded in 1998, the American site has this principle:
‘Britney deserves respect, and her fans deserve respect. Just
because a person doesn't like Britney's music, it doesn't mean they
need to cut her down or make up rumors.’ It does add that those
who dislike Spears are welcome to hold their opinions, too.
It only takes a trip to 1997 to find that the
same tabloid press—indeed, the same journalists, according
to one observer then based in the UK—who were criticizing Diana
for dating Dodi were the same ones paying marshmallow-lined, Union-Jack-wrapped
tributes to her after August 31.
How much can be relied upon in the anti-Britney
movement? Like all famous people, she has been the subject of journalists’
turf wars, so it is no surprise that contradictory stories about
her have emerged.
Perhaps thanks to this discord, she has stood
tall nonetheless and will now potentially last longer than the notable
singing phenomenon that preceded her, the former Geraldine Halliwell
Quintet, the Spice Girls.
Despite some antagonists, her star doesn’t
seem to have fallen even if “fans” booed her at the London
première of Crossroads for lateness and not signing
autographs due to a security risk. Given Lucire’s experience
of London, we haven’t been totally surprised. It was equally
no surprise when she pulled out the stops in safer countries such
as Australia and Japan.
The London situation suggests that there has,
in the year Britney Spears became Britney Spears, the public persona,
been an overdoing of the curiosity around the 20-year-old singer.
Having lived a good part of her life in the public
spotlight so far, she has an understanding of spin, image and examples
that have proved destructive—such as Elvis’s same-again
series of movies during the 1960s.
But there should be limits to how much Britneyed
we get, and admittedly, there’s a lot to her that remains private.
Does she really do the dishes at her mother’s home? What is
the situation with her and her beau, Justin Timberlake? We seem
to have reached a post-post-Diana era with the Spears phenomenon,
one that was manufactured but now shows signs of becoming overwhelming.
‘We all know a bit about Britney but obviously
we don't really know what she's all about. She must have
her public and private personas and it's right that she does. No-one
should have to give 100 per cent of themselves to the public, whether
famous or not,’ says Knol.
If we knew it all, would the Britney star dim?
Probably not. It will fuel the mystique and the public persona of
Britney Spears, but experience has shown the real one would still
be present, unknown to most of the public.
Spears has remained passionate about her music,
knowing that it is this core value that will keep her career shining.
Acting may yet work: her acting début was hardly hampered
by her ability; if anything, it is her fame and the familiarity
of the Britney Spears image which made her less credible. That judgement
aside, Crossroads (there’s no Benny and Diane, if you
haven’t figured that out) may well be a useful career path,
even if the characters were stereotypical and the lead actress,
predictably, gets the guy.
HE IRONY
of the girl next door wearing skimpy outfits has worked before with
Olivia Newton-John’s Physical and various Kylie Minogue
outings—Spears’ professed virginity and southern roots
mixed with the flaunting of flesh paint an “inaccessible”
picture to male fans though it is a not-unexpected product of the
late-1990s and early 2000s.
Phrases such as “friendship with privileges”
were not known a generation before, while the youth knowledge about
sex is probably higher than it has ever been. With it comes the
option of abstinence and a predictable surfacing of traditional
values, regardless of whether they were actually followed themselves
by an earlier generation. But it's a less innocent 21st century.
Somehow, the world seems to be aware that those
values never really steered us wrong—the American retreat to
them in the wake of 9-11 seems to indicate their worth.
As the polls showed in late 2000, there is a division
in the American psyche between sticking with the spirit of a president
with a reputation for his womanizing (were Americans voting Mr Gore,
or the concept of Mr Clinton—just as we had to ask whether
Americans voted Mr Bush Sr or the shadow of Reaganism) to a conservative
Texan who has permitted more than his share of executions while
governor. Britney Spears has the uncanny ability to embody both
ends, consciously or not.
She has the playfulness of the 1990s with the
values of the 2000s: it’s a formula that could work in these
times. As to these times changing, Spears may wish to evolve with
them just by being who she is.
Meanwhile, those who complain about Spears being
too sexy run up, at least at this magazine, against the sort of
criticism Lucire
features’ editor Phillip D. Johnson levelled at those who protested
the A&F Quarterly.
Naked flesh has always sparked reaction and Johnson
wrote, ‘I am not for corrupting the impressionable minds of
emerging teenage psyches. I strongly believe that if you do your
best as a parent to pass on the values you deem important, then
nothing will override that. Kids, contrary to popular opinion, retain
the lessons learned early in life. Picking up the A&F Quarterly
won’t corrupt their minds any more that seeing an ad from the Gap.’
Nor will seeing Britney Spears. And we may see
plenty more of her yet, with her future albums, movies and business
deals. But we do hope for a still more sophisticated Britney, who
strikes the balance between her public and private lives, as she
evolves her dress sense for observers like us. •
Copyright ©2002–8 by JY&A Media, a division of Jack Yan & Associates. All rights reserved.
HE IRONY
of the girl next door wearing skimpy outfits has worked before with
Olivia Newton-John’s Physical and various Kylie Minogue
outings—Spears’ professed virginity and southern roots
mixed with the flaunting of flesh paint an “inaccessible”
picture to male fans though it is a not-unexpected product of the
late-1990s and early 2000s.
@