Bald head in the Morning -Not worth the trouble of an argument
So, once again, a shaven area of Britney Spears’ body has grasped the attention of the blogging sphere (or whatever the cool kids are calling it these days). I can’t remember where I first saw this, so I’m satisfying Raincoaster’s lust for power by linking to her report here.
Anyway, so Rain does point out a few apparent actions that may be considered a tad bizzare. But what confused me was when everybody started saying that she had gone completely nuts, simply because there was footage of her shaving her head.
Now, I admit. It is a slightly extreme haircut, but then, it’s still just a haircut.
It is hardly a coherent indicator that she’s gone nuts.
If you were to ask me (and I assure you…absolutely nobody has) I’d do my cheapo low level psychobabble analysis and say that it’s quite possible that it’s a fairly normal reaction to realising that the entire world objectifies you and treats you with no respect for your privacy or personal freedom to be yourself without being analysed by a thousand and one arseholes who feel that they own you and your body because you sang songs and starred in ’sexy’ videos. If i was to make an entirely uneducated guess, I’d say she’s trying to stop herself being seen as a sex object by stopping herself from fitting into traditional ideals of beauty. She found a way to do that without mutilating herself, and what she does with her body remains her own business.
I mean, she’s seriously being harrassed here. I know it’s not fashionable to side with her, and in interviews and stuff I’ve seen her being pretty damn reprehensible. But I’ve always felt like she acts up for the cameras. People always love to attack her, and maybe she doesn’t deserve to be attacked left right and centre for not wearing pants, but instead we should tell people they shouldn’t take photos aimed up women’s skirts. All of those shots were from low angles, people trying to get the most lewd shots possible. They only did this because they knew there was a market for that kind of material.
I don’t know…I just know that I’d lose it if I couldn’t just go out and have a nice time without getting attacked by loads of photographers….It’d drive me absolutely mad. I might even go so far as to cut of my lovely curly locks if I thought it might earn me a break.
And whatever…a hair cut is a hair cut is a hair cut. I know plenty of girls who look great with skinheads…and it’s not even the point. People, male or female, should be seen as people, and not simply objects of desire, fascination or spectacle.
She has her right to make choices…
I have no idea what I’m talking about any more….
Just needed to get that out as it’s been bothering me. Sorry.
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Yeah, that’s what occurred to me when I saw it on the news. The expression on her face seemed to say, film away, I don’t care who’s watching. Apparently the hairdresser refused to chop her hair so she took it upon herself to do the deed. I can imagine psychoanalysts dubbing this the Britney Syndrome and asking their patients “do you feel an compulsive need to shave parts of your body and put them on display?”
Sorry, Al. Not buying it. I’m tired of celebrities whingeing about how the media gets up their noses. Her “underwear malfunction” was a depserate cry for attention (”I’m over here! O-VER HERE!”). Celebutards either maintain their dignity or descend into desperate media sluttery. I don’t feel she took the high road, exactly.
She is what she has made herself. She’s been a “recording star” since she was 16, and yeah, we all know what a horror it can be being a multimillionaire at 18. But she’s supposed to be smarter than this, and her “entourage” is obviously a bunch of sycophantic winged monkeys if they’re so cowed by a 26-year-old lush that they can’t call her on her own-reputation-mutilating behaviour.
If she wanted the furor to die down she’d have had her kids and announced that she was taking a couple of years out of the studio to work on, um, raising them. As it is, her trailer-trash roots are showing through as surely as the dark ones on her head.
She’s been an irresponsible jackass for an absolute minimum of four years, and if shaving her head and in-n-out rehab are all the price she pays then I think she’s getting off lightly.
Addiction: she has my sympathy. Jackassery, no.
I think she may well be a jackass, in fact, she almos certainly is. Still, she remains a person who does deserve some privacy. So she came from rags to riches and now wants to live a ‘trailer trash’ version of a dream lifestyle and it ended up screwing (almost certainly her fault). I still find it ridiculous that there’s no sympathy for her. It all seems like cry for help stuff to me. She’s isolated from the real world and objectified by thousands. Even an absolute idiot doesn’t deserve that.
I don’t know why I’m suddenly leaping to her defence.
To be honest, what I’m trying to criticise in the above article is less about her and her celebrity and more about the way that women living up to a certain idea of beauty is considered to be a model of complete normality. A woman is assumed to be out of her mind because she wants to cut off her hair.
It probably isn’t what’s going through her head. But my first thought was that it’s an attempt to ‘deface’ her image. Perhaps make it her own again by changing it to something that isn’t what people are looking for. Judging from the wig I’ve seen in later photos…she’s regretting it.
I don’t know. I see your point, but I also feel you’re being fairly harsh to someone who’s real self you know next to nothing about. I know it’s not what you’re getting at, but two prejudices that seem to come out in your comment include the fact that she made millions, and also the fact that she has ‘trailer trash roots’.
I know you’re better than that really, but I can’t just write her off as dumb and crazy.
Most people seem to do that quite quickly.
Why am I defending her so much?
I don’t know.
I don’t get myself sometimes.
Ooopps…somehow I missed your statement of sympathy…sorry, if I raged a bit hard.
I’m pretty much in agreement with Metro. Yes, I know that famous millionaires are people too but in the words of Robertson Davies … “Money does not bring happiness, however, it makes it possible to support unhappiness with exemplary fortitude”.
If she actually has an addiction, then I do sympathise to an extent. But she also has the option to stay home and not constantly make a public spectacle of herself.
Meanwhile, there are a hell of a lot of other needy people out there crying out for help and cannot afford to ‘rehab hop’ from one luxury centre to the next.
Should La Britney be pitied less because she has millions of dollars at her disposal to get all the help she needs? I think so. I know people who struggle through every day and the main obstacle they face is not being able to afford the treatment they need to get better - and they really do want to get better.
The weird thing is that I’ve never heard one piece of so-called music from this person, but she seems to be everywhere all the time and I know more about her than I even want to.
As for the shaved head - it just makes her look uglier than she already did.
I actually think she looks better without the mop of extensions.
In the Philip Jose Farmer book Dayworld (possibly one of the sequels) there’s a character called Panthea Snick who appears who has a shaved head that is (to my memory) described as looking like seal fur, with a white streak through the dark short hairs. I find that girls with round/heart shaped faces can look really good with a shaved head.
Heads can be sexy to.
I wouldn’t recommend that anyone suffering from addiction and or depression simply stay at home to not make a spectacle of herself.
I do think she makes bad choices and should try and just calm down. She can’t be held wholly responsible for the attention the media lavish upon her.
She does however tend to act like an idiot.
It isn’t Britney’s fault that some people can’t afford decent health care (though of course she could and should spend more of her money on public endeavours than pretty and expensive frivolities).
I don’t know the full details of her life, so I am not willing to pass judgement. I just wish people wouldn’t criticise for shaving her head….there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that.
I would certainly recommend to anyone that fucked up and also so bloody ‘famous’ that they cannot leave their home without half a dozen bodyguards that they stay at home (or in their mansion) and seek the treatment they need.
You seem to have an issue about the shaved head thing, AC, as if that’s some sort of big deal. It means nothing to me, other than it’s seemingly yet another pathetic attempt to make headlines.
Again I say, I have never heard one song this woman has put out - I have no idea if she can sing or whatever. I only know her as a media-hog, someone who seemingly does whatever it takes to make the front page of whatever.
I’ve seen her photos. She is not even slightly attractive - she has a bit of a potato face and sports a rather stupid looking expression most of the time.
I reckon her ‘trailer trash’ look has more to do with her personality than where she came from. I mean, I don’t have a ’suburban Winnipeg’ look about me …
Really, I don’t wish the woman any harm, it’s just that she is just one person, so why all the hype? To me she is simply someone that other people tell me is famous.
My street friend José Miguel has been in and out of rehab here in Seville these past couple of years. He lost his leg in a motorcycle accident 25 years ago. He’s a heroin addict. He tries to get better and keeps falling through the cracks. He is charming and smart and lovely … he has a couple of kids he never sees. He is also very poor, which is why he begs in the street. I respect this man and care about him.
I honestly find it hard to respect or care for some flaky idiot who goes out of her way to make headlines. This is my opinion. If you think I am ‘passing judgement’ I refer you to from the last time someone accused me of the same thing.
Oh dang, my link didn’t turn out … here it is again
judgemental or opinionated?
The shaved head thing…or more appropriately the reaction of people to it as a sign that she’s gone mental..is actually what I wanted to talk about. As I don’t know anything about her mental state I choose not to judge. I was not trying to call you judgemental…I think it’s the general atmosphere that pervades peoples reporting on her. I don’t understand the obsession…but it pisses me off that a move away from the normative perception of female beauty is seen as a sign of madness.
To be honest, when I first posted I wasn’t fully aware of all the rehab hopping.
I’m not saying you have to respect someone you’ve never met…I just think she deserves slightly more sympathy than people give her…or in fact…she should just be ignored and let to sort her own shit out. Instead everybody makes it their own problem. I don’t understand what the obsession is with her either, I guess because she’s always presented as a sex object for male enjoyment that means it’s assumed she is beautiful as well as rich. As these are the two things most people seem to aspire to (or at least that most people are told to aspire to) I guess she must be a figure of envy for many people. So she gets hated and haunted by all this attention.
I find myself mildly addicted to celeb culture even as I hate it.
Unfortunately throughout this post and comments I’ve diverted from what I wanted to talk about…which was constructions of feminine beauty and talked about Britney…this was my mistake (I just tend to spew out thoughts when I’m at work and I’ve been really run down lately so it’s causing problems).
Sorry if anyone feels like I’m laying into them here.
Part of me agrees with all that you and metro has said…but the part I tend to follow indicates that I don’t actually know the situation. I’ve occasionally seen Britney say and do quite endearing things (she may be stupid…but she does seem to have a heart occasionally), and I tend to see the good in people (even when there is little) and amplify that in my mind.
I know plenty of charming and wonderful people in terrible conditions battling addictions, we need to help them in every way possible. Please pass on my respect and good wishes to Jose. I think anyone battling with life deserves respect, especially those whose situations make it harder and harder to deal with. We need to reach out to these people. Whatever walk of life they…uh…walk.
So yeah, thanks for the comments everyone…sorry if it’s been a bit hostile….I think I just picked a bad example to try and make my point with….but as I always like to say’I just write the things I write the way I write them.’(Adam Drucker aka Doseone)
I lack focus.
You know, she’s attacking cars with umbrellas now. The situation is not improving.
(PS thanks for the link!)
She really hasn’t done anything worthwhile in the past couple of years, workwise. Why is everyone so obsessed with her.
Toxic remains a great song…I don’t care what you say.
Otherwise she’s done nothing but flash her flange and fill celeb gossip magazines (and the blogosphere).
The obsession is indeed strange.
I find it strange that she ever became any sort of ’sex symbol’ - it really shows just how much media hype affects people. As in, if you are told often enough that someone is beautiful and sexy, then you end up believing it.
As I said before, to me this woman has quite a potato face; certainly she is not anything I would consider beautiful. Then again, what I consider beautiful isn’t made so by a blond wig, a $500 make-up job and serious photo enhancement. I’ve never heard her music, have never heard her speak. Have not seen the media reports about her, except on occasion. So she is just a non-entity to me - but one that seems to have become some sort of obsession for many. For those that either want to ridicule her (a bit like shooting fish in a barrel) and those who want to support and defend her (gawd knows why).
It’s like many years ago when a friend of mine in Toronto said to me - “I mean, hell, why is it that I know anything at all about Jerry Hall???”
I think it’s only a matter of time before Britney runs over a photographer and kills ‘em. What happened to that sweet old Britney we used to know and love?
I’m thinkin’ I like the new gimme gimme song.
I’ve still not heard it. I’ll seek it out when I’ve got more time. Toxic remains my personal favourite.
Anyway, much better thoughts than mine on Britney abound right here:
http://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2007/11/21/years-from-now-britney-spears-will-be-an-entire-course-in-womens-studies/