// December 1st, 2008 // No Comments » // Hott Topics
a road to redemption with no paths to glory
‘Spears could use people in her life who actually listen to her’
By John Charles Reedburg
Sometimes I feel that Britney’s life – is comedy at it’s best.
There is a moment in the website preview for the new BRITNEY SPEARS documentary “Britney: For the Record” – airing on MTV tonight at 10 – in which the discombobulated pop star is expressing her anger about something. She is “horribly angry” in fact. The clip doesn’t make clear what has raised Spears’s ire, whether it’s the bloodthirsty pursuit of the paparazzi or a chipped nail. But the response of Spears’s friends and handlers in the room is to laugh.
This dismissal of her feelings – by people whose mortgages she probably pays – is part of the reason I’m rooting for Spears to make good on her comeback with the release of “Circus,” a new album out Tuesday and currently streaming in full at www.imeem.com. Spears could use people in her life who actually listen to her, even if it’s to allow her still to create the escapist dance-pop that made her name.
Since the deck is so dramatically stacked against Spears, and she has played such a large part in dealing her own hand, I can understand why many spectators to the recent slow-motion crash of her life have little sympathy for the singer. Spears is a mediocre talent who courted fame, traded on her sexuality, and made poor decisions. She deserves the derision that has been heaped on her soon-to-be 27-year-old shoulders. Or so the conventional wisdom goes.
And yet I find myself wondering: Who among us has not made bad choices? Picked the wrong partner? Been failed profoundly by those around us? Eaten Cheetos while strolling barefoot around gas station bathrooms? (OK, I plead guilty to all but the last.)
But have any of us been microscopically surveyed along the way? Held up internationally as poor role models? Been publicly humiliated again and again? Yes, it’s easy to stipulate that Spears has made big mistakes. She’s not the world’s best singer or PTA mom; she’s not going to be accepted into Mensa any time soon.
But Spears has always come off as likable. Even at her most grasping she has exuded a sense of joy about entertaining people and a desire to do so to the best of her abilities, limited though some of them are. Other entertainers at the bottom of the downward spiral have gotten a second chance. Why not Britney?
When it comes to pop-culture redemption, we usually require the satisfactory completion of the three R’s: repentance, rehabilitation, and revitalization. Spears has certainly started to make headway in these areas. On MTV tonight she utters the magic words: “What the hell was I thinking?” Tuesday, also Spears’s birthday, brings the Diane Sawyer sit-down on “Good Morning America.” The cover of Rolling Stone follows. Spears, no doubt, hopes to offer a composed contrast to the mascara-smeared debacles of recent years.
After Spears’s hospitalization and the loss of custody of her two sons, several people, including her father, stepped in to help. Whether that assistance was offered to make sure the cash cow kept producing milk, or to actually protect a human being in need, is debatable. But it appears to have done both.
The head-shaving, umbrella-wielding, gum-snapping, commando-going, awards-show-bombing image of Spears started to fade as she began to take and teach dance classes, record music, spend time with her kids, and tweak her image with a guest role on the CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother.” A return trip to this year’s MTV Video Music Awards yielded a demure – for Spears – outfit, gracious thanks, and three prizes. And spiritual godmother Madonna recently offered her comeback seal of approval by including images of Spears on her “Sticky and Sweet” tour and bringing the younger star onstage at a recent show. (No controversial kissing this time.)
All that stands between Spears and a clean slate is that final “R,” revitalization. “Circus” is a strong step in the right direction – a return to her poppier roots with tracks that build on 2007’s underrated electro-dance effort “Blackout.” While the lyrics flirt with excessive navel-gazing, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that, like the rest of us, Britney Spears is obsessed with Britney Spears, too.
In 2001, Spears released “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman,” a ballad that explored the confusing transition to adulthood. Seven years later, there is no doubt that she is a woman. She’s also a tabloid joke who could once again be taken seriously as a viable entertainer. This is the moment for Britney to reclaim her identity – or perhaps for the first time, define it.
That’s no laughing matter. Every “Circus” has its clowns, but I’m hoping Britney Spears is ready to step up and be the ringmaster instead.
