Garland,Tx---
Still at home. I sat down with my bubble-gum chewing, iPhone using, Cheerleading sister and watched Britney: For the Record, the MTV documentary on the resurrection of the career of one Miss Britney Spears. When I saw the promo for this a week ago the first thought in my mind was "Ok, here's another 20/20 special for a celebrity to try and humanize themselves...I'll watch it."
I was surprised with its honesty. The documentary followed Miss Spears for two months as she filmed videos for her new album and dealt with the constant hoard of paparazzi that follows her on a daily basis. Miss Spears is presented as a human caught in a world of flashing bulbs and screaming crowds, Alice in a heavy metal Wonderland.
While it is most likely to serve as a ploy to get people to buy her record, as someone who has never given her more than a cursory or stranded listen at a party, I found it oddly eye opening. She didn't plead to be left alone or even try that hard to avoid the cameras. Instead we find someone who has, begrudgingly, excepted that the cameras and screaming are simply apart of her life. I find this a sad commentary on the state of culture in this country.
I know we are supposed to view celebrities as these spoiled sub-humans who are oblivious to pain and suffering. We are told that whenever a celebrity whines or cracks under the strain of their fame that they should just shut up and barrel through it. Well, Miss Spears doesn't take any time to complain, nor does she seek the viewer's sympathy at any part of the doc, since it mostly deals with her spending time working and resurrecting her career.
Here is a woman, not a celebrity, but a person who was nearly destroyed by her own fame, by the zombies with cameras that made it their mission to destroy her life.
Celebrity culture is one of more disgusting things about Contemporary America. Our obsessions and projections upon the famous, turning them into these idols to be worshiped, feared, loathed and destroyed, is simply a cop out so that we don't have to deal with our own problems, instead placing them upon the shoulders of the famous. The sooner we begin to treat celebrities like normal people, the sooner we can move beyond our own petty insecurities and inabilities to handle this post (post) modern world.