I don't normally pay attention to celebrities, but. . .

[xiphias]

. . . I somehow managed to be exposed to all the news about Britney Spears. And I guess there's some schadenfreude going on about watching a celebrity self-destruct this way.

My reaction?

I want to take her home, put her in flannel footy pajamas, wrap a quilt around her shoulders, give her a mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows, or a pint of ice cream, or both, and watch all the Muppet Movies in a row with her.

Comments

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

You are clearly a far more empathic person than most. Most people react that way only when the person who's self-destructing is a friend, or at least a close acquaintance.

[mightydoll.livejournal.com]

some people don't even go that far. :(

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

yeah, me too. i keep seeing headlines about "is britney having a nervous breakdown?", and i think "of course she is, and you would be too, if you were the one these articles were being written about instead of the one writing them, you jerk."

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Yup.

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

I feel bad for her. She needs some serious time AWAY from the life she's made for herself (or had made for her) in LA. Maybe a nice country house in England with lots of sheep, and it rains and is cold, and she has to wear sweaters and drink tea.

And a big netflix queue.

And a good therapist.

And a teddy bear.

N.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

She's been DEFINED, by other people, by her celebrity, and her sexuality. And her partying.

Now, there's nothign wrong with partying, sex, or alcohol -- I'm in favor of all three -- but one cannot be defined by only one aspect of one's personality.

She needs time away from all that to find an additional definition of herself.

I think she should go to Oxford and get a degree in Babylonian cuneiform. It wouldn't mean that she couldn't ALSO be sexual, partying, and a pop star, but you need MORE than that, as well.

[yardlong.livejournal.com]

You are a truly nice guy, and reading that is a breath of fresh air :)

I don't pay attention to celebrities either, but couldn't avoid hearing about Britney.

[practicallyfame.livejournal.com]

I agree wholeheartedly.

[whuffle.livejournal.com]

I'm thinkin' the girl needs to hop a one way flight to Peru, chill out for a while, get her head on straight, and once she has, maybe try living life OUT of the spotlight for a bit.

Oh wait, didn't Bobby Fischer, who did exactly that for most of his life, just die? Right. And yet he was still villafied every time he poked his head up or dared to say something in public. Not that I don't think he was a certified whack job, but still, he did drop out of public life. And yet the press still haunted him and made a demon of him.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Peru is probably a bad choice for her -- that's where cocaine COMES from.

[florafloraflora.livejournal.com]

I admit that my first reaction to the Britney debacle is, live by the sleaze, die by the sleaze.

Yours is more commendable, though, and I should probably emulate it.

[jhitchin.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that perspective.

Yesterday, I was driving home and on the radio news was a story about paparazzi who were injured trying to follow Britney around. All I could think was, "Serves you right, leeches!"

Perhaps Britney needs to go to Mongolia or something for a while.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

now *there* is schadenfreude i can get behind. (i know, they're just doing their job too, but it's a job that makes me sick)

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

I feel bad for her too. Her mom seems to me to be a fucking horrorshow, such that I'm not sure Britney ever had much of a chance to turn into a functional person through upbringing. It's a lot harder when you have to do it yourself, and she had to grapple with the disadvantage of making every mistake in public on a billion screens in a billion living rooms every night. Combine that with the adolescent allergy to admitting anything you did in public was a mistake, and it's basically just a wreck waiting for a train. She married too young and had kids way too young, and while I think it's not too late if she really wants to turn into a human being, she's first going to have to find some kind of role model, which has got to be hard in her position, since I don't think Paris Hilton and Madonna are role models for sanity.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Heck, grading on the curve, Madonna is a success.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I agree with the reply above; you're a very nice person.

[alaria-lyon.livejournal.com]

Britney is no different from any of my clients, and mostly I just feel for her that she has to go through all this in the public eye - I can't imagine it. But my main reaction is, her poor kids.

[asqmh.livejournal.com]

She needed some time to be a child. She never really got that. I dislike quite a bit of what the Britney Icon™ stands for, but that's no excuse for being inhumane toward a person and somehow excusing our cruelty by dehumanizing her with her celebrity.

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

This is the sweetest thing I've read all day.

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

(And I actually don't know what the Britney news is, or care.)

[ailbhe]

Wow, I missed all this. She's younger than my little sister, who is getting married this summer, and she's already lost even *access* to her two toddlers? Dear god above.

Of course, Wikipedia is my information source, so this could all be nonsense.

Losing the right even to see her children. Even if she didn't want them, and she did, that's frightening. What on earth did she do to them, to lose that right? Fathers who are convicted of raping their daughters still get supervised visits in some places.

[kshandra]

What on earth did she do to them, to lose that right?

Multiple failures to appear for court dates is my understanding.

[bastette-joyce.livejournal.com]

Well, I have no idea what's going on with this story, but it seems like the consensus here is that she's still basically a child who was deprived of a childhood, and still seems to need the comforts of a good parent.

That said, I wonder if there isn't more than just schadenfreude going on? Maybe there's also some resentment at the way we all get inundated by the "star-making machinery" (as Joni Mitchell once put it), to idolize the latest siliconed, liposuctioned, botoxed-at-age-26, airbrushed and possibly talentless sex fantasy? (I don't know whether Britney in particular is talentless, but many similar idols-of-the-moment are. Or at least, they're mediocre talents who don't exactly push the envelope of whatever form they perform in.) And then such people are held up as some kind of ideal, against whom the rest of us can feel inadequate when compared to them.

Unfortunately, those of us who resent this often direct our hostility at the wrong person, who is often a victim her/himself. (This happens to female stars more often than males, but men, especially very young men, get chewed up, too.) After all, this person is the public face of destructive celebrity. We don't see the executives who are getting rich at her expense. So we don't exactly cheer when they lose money because she's now an object of ridicule. Instead, we feel some sense of satisfaction that the person who was supposed to be so superior to us was just another vulnerable teenager.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

One thing I saw, while scanning mags in the grocery line, is the theory that she's bipolar. Does seem to fit what I've heard/read of things.

[alsnowgrrl.livejournal.com]

I agree...she needs time away from all the Hollywood craziness. Maybe a nice Amish family could take her in. Get her back to basics?

[ron_newman]

She's a Mickey Mouse Club alum, right? Maybe she'll eventually turn out more like Annette Funicello (though hopefully without Annette's multiple sclerosis).

[mightydoll.livejournal.com]

me too. I feel really bad for her.

[hel]

That sounds like just the thing. There was an article I read a while ago about an xian congregation where the pastor urged all the church members to write britney letters expressing their love and good wishes for her, as the pastor thought britney probably really needed some unconditional support right now. This reminds me of that, and I think both ideas come from very loving people, not that I know either you or the pastor.

[phantom_wolfboy]

You're a good man, Ian.

I don't know that I'd go as far, but I do feel sorry for her.

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, that's just because you're a nice person.

[ellettra.livejournal.com]

that's because you are a nice person. my immediate thought when i read this was that she'd sneak into your bathroom and snort coke off the handle of your toothbrush while you were cueing up the Great Muppet Caper.

but then, i am snarky. heh. :)

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

You're not the only one. The poor thing never had a chance -- the celebrity system eats its young.

I just wish people would leave her the hell alone.