I remember when it was Britney's belly button that was making the front pages, not the latest Disney star's DUI. A more wholesome time, I think, when pop stars sang about missing their boyfriends rather than licking guns and drinking Jamieson.
And I think that despite the fact that for a good portion of her career, Britney was not the image of class and even, good hygiene, I think that she still embodied what a lot of girls felt. She just felt to the extreme.
For the longest time I feel like Britney was kind of in a time warp. She was aging, but was still treated like a kid. All she wanted was to be taken seriously. You can't expect to baby someone for their entire lives, and then when they are 25 years old just throw them out into the real world. Of course she was bound to short circuit and go off the grid.
I remember doing everything like Britney; when she started hawking Sketchers, I had a pair right away. I bought an iZone camera when she started doing those ads too. I had Britney Spears dolls, stickers, books and even a watch that when you pressed the sides of it, it played "Oops...I did it again". I was a girl possessed. I wanted to cut my hair like her, dress like her, dance like her, everything. So when I started to grow up and started to realize that being your own person was cool too, and she started to go down that long twisty road that culminated in a bald head and various paparazzi crotch shots, it made me understandably upset.
When she started making bad decisions, it made me sad. I wanted to hug her and be friends with her and just watch movies and go shopping or something. I felt her pain and felt so hopeless about it. I didn't know her. I wanted her to be able to see me, and to see what she inspired in me, and be the old Britney again.
In the past couple years though, she has really turned herself around. Back to the old Britney, but wiser. She looks healthy and happy. And when Britney is happy, I'm happy.
I think the real reason I started this post was because I wanted to share this passage from an article from Seventeen magazine from a looonnnng time ago. It's from back in 2004 when she had her quickie marriage to childhood friend, Jason Alexander. Seventeen had Britney on the cover and to preface their interview with her, they contacted this psychic who had a knack for reading people. This little passage that I'll copy here was definitely the turning point in my love affair with all things Britney. When I read it, I felt sad for her. Because I knew it was true. I knew I was expecting too much of her, and once I read this article and understood her situation, it didn't make me want to idolize Britney anymore, it made me humanize her. And instead of placing her on a pedestal I decided to instead just stand in her corner and root for her.
Anyways, here is the passage, it was taken from Seventeen magazine...
I’ve never met, never even seen Britney. But she reminds me of another young girl I saw once, in Kathmandu, Nepal. She stared down at me from behind the shutters on a carved wooden balcony for just a moment, until her attendants whisked her away. She was probably about 7 years old but made to look like a woman-adorned in silk and gold, covered in jewels, her dark eyes outlined in black kohl. I was told that she was the Kumari Devi, the living goddess, chosen as a small child to be the symbol of the power and sanctity of virginity. The most unusual thing about the living goddess is that her feet are never allowed to touch the ground. On the day she gets her first period, she’s thrown out of the palace, and a new living goddess is chosen.
Have we chosen Britney Spears as our living goddess, our pure virginal women-child? If so, then when she does something we don’t like, we’re disappointed. She never asked for this-a role model is chosen by the person who needs one. If you need to follow Britney, be like her-playful, foolish, successful, and discovering. But remember she’s a Hollywood artist, an entertainer depicting autobiographical stories. When we get a glimpse of her behind the shutters of what we think is her private life, we think we’ve caught her. And before long we’ll be looking for a new living goddess.
When I heard about Britney’s marriage, I smiled. Married, annulled, cleaned up, and sent away-it all happened in 55 hours, just about the length of time you get to be a teenager these days. At 22, Britney already has her whole life behind her and so much more ahead. I think she chose Jason Allen Alexander to be her lawful, wedded husband because she just wanted to go home. He knew her before she was the Britney Spears the whole world now knows-or wanted to see what her life would’ve been like if she’d taken a different path-the one she might’ve taken if she still lived in her hometown in Louisiana. The path that most of her childhood girlfriends are taking.
What do we know of Britney and Jason? Does it really matter? What Britney did was tell us that she’s not the virgin goddess we wanted her to be: She bleeds. I think she just wanted to touch the ground.Anyways, not to be a huge downer, I just thought I'd share it. It seems appropriate considering most news websites I looked at today had a "Check out Miley's latest scandal" ticker at the top of the page...
I'll always be a Britney fan. No matter what she does in life, I've got her back.
xo
Love Britney!
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