It’s Britney Bitch

Alright, I went back and forth deciding whether or not I really wanted to write about this, but it truly was one of the more interesting television documentaries I’ve seen in a while. And I am being serious.

Last night I caught one of the many replays of MTV’s Britney: For the Record. This hour-and-a-half special first aired Sunday night, two days before the release of Britney Spears’s new record Circus on Tuesday December 2, the singer’s 27^th birthday.

The special consists of footage from the past couple of months, chronicling the pop-star’s latest comeback, and provides an interesting insight into mega-fame in our celebrity obsessed culture.

At times Britney seemed to be a prisoner of her own celebrity. All of her decisions seem to be made for her, by her father and a team of managers, lawyers, and handlers. I believe that her father may still have some sort of legal mandated guardianship over her, but this was not explained during the television special that produced by Spears.

“Even when you go to jail you got the time when you know when you’re getting out,” said Spears in what seemed to me as one of her more sincere moments.

She described her life as “too in control, no excitement, no passion. It’s like Groundhog’s day everyday.”

But what I found so compelling about Spears in what was supposed to be a true insight into her life, she seemed to be a contradiction, not able to make up her mind. While one minute she was saying her situation was worse than being in jail, she also refused to admit that her life wasn’t normal, and continually claimed she loves her job.

“Normal is different for everybody,” said Spears. “It could be a lot worse, you know what I mean. I think to myself there are people out there who have it a lot worse.”

“I used to be a cool chick. I feel the paparazzi has taken my cool side away,” Britney tells us at one of the moments when she isn’t a pop-icon, but just a girl with a crush. “I miss the days of going out and hanging out with a guy.”

Spears and her choreographer have traveled to New York to see the Broadway musical In the Heights. Afterward two of the actors join them for dinner. Britney likes one of them and spends the evening flirting, giggling, and having fun. As the dinner ends she describes how part of her life is missing. She knows she can’t pursue this guy. Dating isn’t a part of her life anymore.

Britney describes the evening as being like a dream. A dream that you know is a dream, but you don’t want it to end, you don’t want it to be a dream. And then you wake up and it’s gone.

Can someone be oblivious one minute and borderline profound the next? What is normal?

I remembered a profile I read written about her by Chuck Klosterman, and went back to read it. The piece titled Bending Spoons With Britney Spears appeared in Esquire in November 2003 and also can be found in Klosterman’s book IV.

Britney's November 2003 Esquire cover photo by James White

Klosterman describes his encounter interviewing Britney as a series of contradictions. She refused to acknowledge that she was a sex icon, even though she was being photographed for the cover wearing only a sweater that did not quite cover her lower half.

Klosterman says that Spears refuses to deconstruct herself and in doing so achieves a balance that she either consciously strives for or sustains without even trying. She is all things to all people. Her statements on the surface seem insane and superficial, but are also neutral and contradictory.

She’s able to achieve what politician’s spend their careers trying to perfect. A double-speak that seems unquestionably sincere. Maybe that’s why so many people are so fascinated with her, why she is the most famous person in the word, the most internet searched 7 out of the last 8 years.

At the end of Britney: For the Record, the director that we never see but whose voice we hear from time to time asking Britney questions during the interview portions, asks her what she wants her fans to know about her, what she wants people to take from this documentary. After a long confused silence she concedes with a whisper “I don’t know.”

After 90 minutes of telling us one thing, then another, playing the victim one minute, and the girl who loves life and loves her job the next, she has nothing to say. It’s up to us.

It was perfect.