Um, fast answer? No.
In what is possibly the stupidest article that I have read all week - and that is saying a lot, because as a gossipwhore pop culture writer I read a LOT of nonsensical crap - a writer claimed that Britney might be saved if we all just followed the principles set down in the current bogus-pop-mysticism-rip-off bestseller The Secret.
Toronto Star writer Daphne Gordon wrote: "I believe in The Secret, the popular self-help book and
movie that says we create the world we live in through our thoughts,
and it's become increasingly obvious that we, as a culture, are at
least in part responsible for what's happening to Spears...
So, starting today, I vow to stop thinking about Spears. I'm putting
her right out of my mind, where she belongs, so she can do whatever she
needs to get better... Are you willing to help Britney by resolving to stop buying into celebrity culture?"
Um, fast answer again? NO. I'm willing to help Britney by shouting at her through my computer to smarten the eff up, but give up celebrity culture? No way.
First of all, although I agree in part with the argument that Britney's troubles are in some important way related to her celebrity, it's absurdly reductive to suggest that by eliminating the culture of celebrity, we eliminate celebrity trainwreckage. For every Britney, there's a Natalie Portman and a Scarlett Johansson and a Christina Aguilera and a Pink and a host of other young female celebrities who, even if they do not live normal lives according to the standards of non-celebrities, are by no means trainwrecks. There's something the matter with Britney that runs much deeper than simple corruption-due-to-celebrity-whorage.
Second of all, does anyone think for a minute that if the attention stopped, Britney would get better? Part of Britney's problem seems to be that she can't survive without the attention. This is, after all, the woman who has taken up with a paparazzo and helped him set-up photo-ops to fuel pregnancy rumors. She asks the paparazzi to fetch her lattes, for fack's sake. Make her go cold turkey on the attention front and my guess is that she'll spontaneously combust.
Finally - and here is where I get really frustrated - WTF with the facking 'Secret'? Is there any bigger load of pop-spiritual rip-off crap (Buddhism For Dummies much?) out there than the suggestion that we fully think our own destinies into being? (Which, um - excuse me if I'm wrong - seems to preclude the possibility that others can think our destinies into being for us? Do we think our own worlds, or do others think them for us, as is being suggested here about Britney? Which is it, Daphne Gordon? Did we think Britney's crisis into being, or did she do it to herself? And what does this mean for our understanding of what happened to Heath Ledger? Did we think him to death, or did he do it to himself, and are not both those theories batshit crazy and the latter of them, you know, TOTALLY OFFENSIVE? Head. Hurting.)
Sure, the cult of celebrity can be toxic, and the media-complex has some responsibility to keep their contributions to the cultishness in check. But the cult of celebrity is nothing new - the ancient Greeks worshipped and pilloried their heroes with what was possibly an even greater fervor than our own. It's simply bogus to suggest that *we* turn celebrities into trainwrecks through our attention to them. Celebrities with deep-seeded issues turn themselves into trainwrecks (or, if they're very young, their parents and managers do it); the rest of them just make their money and drink their champagne.
And I write about it and make a little bit of the moneys and feed my kid. Circle of life and all. It's sometimes ugly, but that's just the way it is.
'Kay. Rant over. You may all go back to your gossipnets.
