www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2009-09-22/things-to-do/britney-spears-and-me-a-relationship-in-four-partsBritney Spears and me: A relationship in four parts
Pop princess to appear in San Diego as part of "Circus Tour"
By Valerie Scher, SDNN
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 6 comments | read comments | post a comment
Britney Spears is the sexy ringmaster of her "Circus." (AP Photo)
“I still have a lot to learn - about the business, about music, and about myself,” Britney Spears once said. “It’s exciting.”
Exciting?
To the millions who have followed the ups and down of her life and career, Britney’s evolution has been much more than that. It has provoked cheers and jeers, admiration and consternation.
I have enough mixed feelings about her to fill the San Diego Sports Arena, where Britney performs on September 24 as part of her international “Circus Tour.” No other pop celeb prompts more ambivalent emotions in me — not even Amy Winehouse and Lindsay Lohan, who at their most extreme were virtuosas of career-trashing self-destructiveness.
Britney, now a 27-year-old divorced mother of two, is traveling her own path of superstardom. And for better or worse, we’re making the journey with her. As she changes, so can we.
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Just consider the four stages of my relationship with Britney.
Part one: Awareness
As a young performer on the Disney Channel’s “New Mickey Mouse Club,” in 1993-94, Britney personified all-American perkiness. Cute and blond, she could sing, dance and swish her long hair with the aplomb of a pop princess in the making.
If you watch old videos of her on YouTube, you can tell that even then, she had a certain sparkle, a particular sassiness that helped define her charisma. The native of McComb, Mississippi, who was reared in Kentwood, Louisiana, was a born performer.
On one occasion, when she was four, she entertained guests at her parents’ party.
“Oh my gosh, I was singing a Madonna song and I peed myself,” recalled Spears in one of her more memorable quotes.
As she got older, her confidence increased (along with her bladder control). In addition to becoming a capable gymnast, something that helped her dancing, she sang in her church choir and gained valuable training at New York’s Off-Broadway Dance Center and the Professional Performing Arts School.
A big breakthrough was serving as a TV Mousketeer, from ages 11-13, along with such budding stars as Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake. But frankly, I didn’t pay much attention to her. My children were too young to be devoted fans of the show.
Besides, Britney made pop music seem as sugary and disposable as bubblegum. She was harmless, right?
Part Two: Anger
With the 1998 release of her debut single, “…Baby One More Time,” Britney’s image changed forever. To parents like me, it was not an improvement. Quite the contrary.
The chart-topping international hit was as suggestive as it was popular, transforming Britney from teen dream to sex symbol. The video — which has been viewed 31.5 million times on YouTube — glorified her as a tease, a turn-on, a husky-voiced, high school-age vixen who had already mastered a come-hither look.
The ambiguity of the song’s signature line - “hit me baby one more time” - added another unsettling element. Was the song an invitation to violence?
As The New York Times pointed out: “Her performance spurred controversy as her style changed from flirt to vamp, from Catholic schoolgirl attire to barely dressed. Under the determined management of her mother, Lynne, Ms. Spears became a pop phenomenon.”
That sex sells is hardly a revelation. In movies as well as pop music, young women have for generations gained attention by flaunting their attractiveness.
What angered me about Britney’s fame was the trickle-down effect, the way her flagrantly sensual style impacted impressionable girls who were years younger. All you had to do was visit a shopping mall to see girls my daughter’s age who looked as if they were nine going on nineteen and shopped in the children’s department of some emporium called “Tarts R Us.”
I don’t blame Britney for all of this. It wouldn’t be fair.
She was part of a youth culture ruled by sometimes greedy and manipulative adults. To them, fame and fortune were irresistible attractions and the consequences of growing up too fast were of little concern.
With so much fame, and so much pressure, Britney was headed for dangerous territory. More and more, the song title “Oops!…I Did It Again” seemed like her own personal ode to faulty judgment.
Part Three: Anxiety
What goes up must come down. And in the case of Britney — who won a Grammy for Best Dance Recording for the catchy hit single “Toxic” — the downward spiral was dizzying.
Britney Spears gave a less than stellar performance at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2007. (AP Photo)
Starting in 2004, her life seemed pretty much a crash-and-burn disaster, sparking stories in supermarket tabloids and jokes by TV comedians. She provided plenty of material. Consider her 55-hour-long marriage to childhood pal Jason Allen Alexander; her marriage to Kevin Federline (illustrated by the aptly titled reality show “Britney & Kevin: Chaotic”); the birth of their two sons and clash-filled divorce and custody battle.
There were alarming events, such as Britney checking out of rehab less than 24 hours after being admitted; shaving off her hair and going into rehab again. She plummeted further during her appearance at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards.
What was supposed to be a triumphant comeback was instead, as People magazine put it, “a bust.” Britney moved sluggishly and seemed awkward and disengaged, prompting the BBC to call her performance the “worst to grace the MTV Awards.”
Early in 2008, it got worse. The scenario involved the police, psychiatric evaluation, and hospitalization at the UCLA Medical Center. Though Britney had often seemed kind of ditsy, this sort of melt-down went far beyond that.
As a mother, I worried about her. Britney was a mess, in danger of becoming the latest casualty of the live-fast-die-young syndrome. Would she survive?
Part Four: Acceptance
Now, as Britney continues the global tour that began in March, she seems very much a survivor.
I’m not upset with her anymore, or exasperated. Britney may never be a model of emotional or professional stability but she has grown up. Though both her album and tour have “Circus” in the title, that word no longer describes her life.
She’s a working mother, a single parent faced with the daunting challenge of nurturing two young sons in fame’s relentless spotlight. I admire her resilience and her determination to keep doing what she does best, which is perform.
As she states in the song “Circus”: “I’m a put-on-a-show kind of girl/ Don’t like the backseat, gotta be first.”
So go for it, Britney. And best wishes.
Valerie Scher is the SDNN Arts & Entertainment editor. You can reach her at valerie.scher(at)sdnn.com; follow her on Twitter at vscher
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