Ring-mistress

So Britney's back in the ring, and HOW! Circus has pretty much shattered all the records, following closely on the heels of her other hit single Womanizer. This is the part where I blush, shuffle my feet and admit that I'm one of the old-time Spears fans. I liked the masochistic school-girl with pigtails who liked being hit... one more time, and I loved her in Crazy, and I even liked her in that ridiculous poor-little-rich-girl Lucky song... And then I watched horrified as she spiraled down a horrible rollercoaster, amply helped in her smouldering descent by the media.

Let's not blame the paparazzi alone here. As someone pointed out on her Wikipedia page, Britney's a great example of how people become simultaneously valued/devalued as commodities rather than human beings. Suddenly, every little thing Britney did was news, every tantrum, every angry outburst was screaming at you from the front page - and yes, you were lapping it up! As Britney croons, all eyes on me in the center of the ring, just like a circus...!



Was she partly responsible for all that attention? Perhaps - but definitely not to the gruesome extent that it turned out to be. The Spears Phenomenon pretty much became a case study in media ethics on reporting privacy in my classroom - in fact, I encouraged my students to think about the media attention and whether it was merited even in the case of the most publicity-greedy celebs.

But this post is not about debating the pros and cons of media commoditification (yea, you probably won't find that word in Webster!). It's about how she actually came back from over the hill where she'd practically been hurled over and buried six feet under. It took more than one lunge from her, and several attempts to come back, fight for custody of her kids (an ongoing battle), fight to get back into shape, fight to get the right songs, and struggle to grow as a person. And I like to think she has. Circus is definitely a newer Britney: I see shades of her journey as a person through the awesome challenges thrown at her. And I like how she uses humor to channel her anger into some great ditties in the new album. Case in point: Womanizer.



K-Fed, duck for cover - she's opened the closet now, bitch! :-)