I was never a fan of Britney Spears’ music-
When she was at the summit of her career, I was in a high school classroom teaching tenth grade students how to manage and maneuver their way around Mac G3’s. It seemed as if every boy in the room did their first internet search for Britney. Cool. For them and for Britney. I was thrilled that they were on task as relevant to the class lesson as they were engaged in learning how to refine an Internet search. As the Hollywood Gods would want it, a good majority of the female students also launched a search for Britney posing search engine questions like, “Where is Britney?” And, “Who is Britney dating?” And “What’s in Britney’s handbag?” they all wanted to see a piece of Britney.
Makes sense – these kids are like little tea bags soaked in liquid media. All they know is what they see.
Four years trudged between the Britney moment and the introduction of the next nymphette Britney was washed up according to the barometer of the current students who were launched on yet another internet search exercise – (and still on those darn G3’s) though this time the search winner was _______. I stopped paying attention. The G3’s stopped paying attention too, their memory was fading as badly as a human with Alzheimer’s.
All things considered, the aging of the G3’s, a one time seductive computer novelty combined with the exploitation of Britney had lost the sparkle, the shine, the “I want that!” caliber of desire for no good reason other than it isn’t working up to the dangling carrot of par. Okay, so the G3’s are machinery and it can’t get it’s feeling hurt when the whole class agrees that it’s useless, but Britney is real even though she didn’t seem like it. Still, she was just a kid when she was launched into the throes of the American Idol snake pit and what Hollywood contributed in allowing a kid to seem as if she is alright—by that I mean—normal, is a slap in the face to girls and women alike. Marilyn, Britney, Hester, Mary, You, Me, hell, it’s all the same—people who are first exploited and then publicly humiliated and then scorned forever when all they did was innocently comply.
To be continued….
