Amid MTV debacle, harshest words are saved for Britney's bod

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

The consensus is clear: Britney Spears performed like she was sloshing blindfolded through mud at MTV's Video Music Awards. No one disputes that the troubled pop princess royally mangled her much-heralded comeback.

But what about the nastiest comments of all — those about her body? "Lard and Clear," read Monday's headline in the New York Post. "The bulging belly she was flaunting was SO not hot," wrote E! Online. And so on.

Was it fair? Did Spears, lest we forget a mother of two, deserve to be held up against the standard of her once fantastically toned abs, sculpted by sessions of 1,000 tummy crunches? Or was she asking for it by choosing that unforgiving black-sequined bikini?

More profoundly, in an age where skinny models and skeletal actresses are under scrutiny for the message they're sending young girls, what does it say that we're excoriating a young woman for a little thickness in her middle?

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Well, I'm no Britney fan, but she seems to be something of a lightning rod lately for people's opinions of what an American woman's supposed to be, so let's take a look at what all the fuss is about:



I don't give a fuck what anybody says: That's not fat.

Actually, as far as my own aesthetic is concerned, I've never seen Britney looking so hot. For years, I've stood in perplexed disgust as the whole skinny-as-concentration-camp look took hold in American pop culture. I mean, I have mixed feelings about the corporate media's treatment of women as sex objects in general--like most American men, I love looking at hot babes, but I also understand that the constant and endless stream of the sexually objectified female image dominates cultural attitudes; that is, the whole thing keeps women down. But this objectification has taken an extraordinarily dangerous turn, changing men's sexual tastes while urging young women to behave in a clearly unhealthy fashion, and driving into anxiety and depression those who resist.

It's sick. And I just don't understand why so many men have bought into the look. It's as though they're all turned on by Bruce Lee now. Anyway, to be fair to critics, Britney's performance at the MTV awards show, rather than her now-curvaceous body, was indeed a disaster. She looked like a deer in the headlights, frozen with stage fright: as a performer myself, I've been there, and I sympathize. I really feel sorry for her.

I'm sure she'll turn it around. Maybe some more therapy is in order.

But not a diet, and not more intense work outs. She's fucking hot, and the entertainment hags who bashed her can just eat me.

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