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020309
According to N+1 Magazine, January 30 marked ten years since Britney Spears first entered the pop pantheon with the song “Hit Me Baby One More Time.” In tribute, they have cadged together a rather awkward assemblage of “tributes,” though all of them are, at heart, over inflated memoirs. Emily Gould’s piece—an advice mixtape of sorts, featuring predictable songs by lady singers of the 70s, 80s, and 90s—is the possible exception, as it’s a blog posting and not a coherent essay.
Taken as a whole, the exercise is remarkably condescending, to pop culture in general and to Ms. Spears in particular. Each piece chastises the reader for having been too stupid and overfed and drunk on the success of the Clinton years (yes, I suppose, too American) to have noticed the harbinger of blankness that Britney represented. Each essay is weighed down by a heady combination of regret and disgust at what has transpired over the past ten years and, if we are to trust these authors, Britney Spears is the both the lightening rod and the mascot of our demise.
I don’t care one way or another for Britney Spears, but I find this assertion lazy; worse, I find it boring. What has this pop tartlet ever done besides be exactly what we wanted her to be? Perhaps the blame rests more squarely on the shoulders of the American public, a public that includes not only 12 million Wal-Mart shoppers but me and you and (yes) several staff members of an elitist, highfalutin’ literary magazine that continues to assert its importance by childishly standing on the outskirts of the party, hurling insults at anyone and everyone who dares to admit that they might be having fun.
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