Posts Tagged ‘Mystified’

Mystified by Britney Spears performance?

Full disclosure: I’ve have never really had an opinion of Britney Spears one way or the other as a performer, so I may not be the best person to judge her “comeback”.

Last night, one of my friends came to my apartment with a video from a Britney Spears concert that she had gone to a couple weeks ago. She had been building up to it all day, about how incredible the performance was, especially Britney’s part in it etc., etc. I finally agreed to watch it, thinking that I’d just sit tight until it was over. As it turned out, when she played it I was surprised, but for all the wrong reasons. Unlike what I had heard in passing, this looked nothing like a “comeback”. I actually felt sick in my heart for Britney the entire time I watching it. While the set and the pyrotechnics were impressive, at the center of it all seemed to be a grown woman with the mind of a child (and again, not in a good way). Other than feeling sick, images from little girl beauty pageants kept coming into my head. The whole part of the concert that I watched looked to me like a shell-shocked five year old who had been dressed up like a hooker, walking across the stage (walking, not dancing) like there was a firing squad in the wings waiting to take her down if she made one wrong move. It made me profoundly uncomfortable, and not only was I surprised by my friend’s continued exclamations of how great Britney was dancing, etc., but that- when I actually googled later to see if anyone else had the same reaction- there seemed to be very little in the way of concert criticism or commentary that made the rather obvious observation that Britney is very much still sick, and has probably just been regimented out of her destructive behaviors, rather than having actually come to terms with them. Lots of comments on the pyrotechnics, some criticism of her lack of energy while dancing, but no concern for a woman who is obviously still falling apart, and being held together with very little glue.

I’m pretty sure I’m not making this up. Any one else have thoughts?