They’re either intellectually impotent or just plain ignorant.

I mean no disrespect to the casual observer who is grinning from ear to ear at the sheer idea of America’s sweetheart unraveling before our shocked eyes. Up until this point, I’ve resigned to the notion of pacifying constructive ideas to make them more digestible to Joe Blow. And their glee to Britney Spears’ fall from grace is a victory against alleged elitist forces who mock their monotonous lives.

But neither they or the opinion-mongers who occupied the airwaves with their compost posed as fact don’t seem to follow what has truly happened to Britney Spears.

The pop starlet from McComb, Mississippi was a train wreck waiting to happen. Now, truth be told, part of her downward spiral might have something to do with a mental condition but the other half has more to do with her slowly, killing the creation that scorched Popular Culture 10 years ago. The old Britney Spears, the one who professed to the world that she was “Not a Girl, Not yet a Woman,” was a slick, marketing ploy that was designed to drive a generation of sex-crazed men down to their knees and parents to the record stores to buy Spears’ records for their little girls. As she reached legal age, the faceless suits faced a dilemma: Is Britney Spears that wholesome, All-American girl that your daughter can embrace as a legit role model or is she a sex-starved woman ready to bump and grind her way into immortality like her idol Madonna?

Neither one is accurate.

This incarnation of Britney Spears isn’t devised to leech onto the public consciousness like Madonna, who has been successful at it for many years. This Britney Spears to who we’re now accustom to is a strange paradox. On one hand she seems to relish destroying that public persona that’s garner her fame and fortune. Her way of crying out for help.

Her way of giving a one-finger salute to those who created her for the purpose of squeezing that last extra dime until she was nothing more than a washed-up hosebag. On the other hand, she seems to endear herself to the bedlam she has created because this is who she really is. She isn’t a princess, a starlet, or the girl next door that your daughter will grow up to idolize and your son would hope to bring home to mother. She’s a daughter of the South who lacks proper manners and poise. She’s a self-centered brat infuriated by the press, yet cannot live without them.

Britney Spears has drawn so many reactions and criticisms about how her demise is a signal that Western Civilization is falling apart. The most humorous are those celebrities who want to save her. I find it quite strange that these are the same individuals who speak out so forcefully about the evils that the folks in Washington D.C., brings with their lies, yet want to lend a helping hand to a person who along with James Frey, Roger Clemens, and President George W. Bush, are the symbols of a decade in which truth has become ambiguous.

These folks talk about saving Britney like if they’re talking about curing Cancer.

If indeed Britney Spears does snap out of her fog, the public will have already flushed her out of their system. She will become a mere afterthought. A hysterical footnote in American Pop Culture. One will look back on her career as if they’re brushing off dandruff from their shoulder.

Looking back to 40 years ago, American Culture was dominated by an assortment of artists who were under the age of 30. This cultural Tsumani resulted in sweeping changes that are still felt to this very day. Those individuals were reckless, creative, self-indulgent, dangerous, intelligent, and too good to last. But they were real. They weren’t concocted out of thin air for the amusement and financial promiscuity of the mainstream.

Britney Spears and other corporate America creations are nothing more than circus freaks for the I-Pod generation. And when they shed their corporate skin to show that they’re more real than what we’re led to believe, we ridicule them even further because deep down inside we want the illusion to continue. America has always loved illusionists, whether they are Presidents, pop stars, or Home Run Kings. Illusionists always make sure we sleep better at night.

What would life be without a Britney Spears to look forward to? It won’t be fun but it won’t be quite depressing. Watching her self-destruct is painful, like watching a person walk through glass. But in America we never turn our heads away from a beautiful train wreck. For better or worse, Britney Spears will remain in this country’s lexicon for quite a while. But what we’ve learned in the final days of the Britney era is that dreams can be fun and will give someone a break from the complexities of the real world. But if it’s at the expense of a person who is used as a instrument for someone’s own imagination, we’re not only suckers for believing in it but accomplices in the potential demise of that said person who wants nothing more than to not live out someone else’s fantasies.

As the decade slowly winds down, significant changes are on the horizon. Britney Spears will not be a part of those changes. And I believe we’re better off for it, including her.

Write Comment
Name:	Guest
Title:
Comment:
Code:*

Powered by AkoComment 2.0!