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OT: Britney Spears Ongoing Career Revitalization Plan
moremojo:
I agree, Milli, she is not fat, and actually displays a reasonably healthy-looking body one would associate in a woman maturing into her late twenties who has borne children on top of everything else. I think it's simply the disjunct between a mature body such as we see here and the near-anorectic, adolescent-type figures that have passed as exemplary of feminine beauty in our culture for so long now, that is causing the comment here.
I do not think that outfit is at all flattering to her; again, I think she would serve herself well to adopt a more mature style more consistent with her years and position in life, and to leave behind the naughty-girl persona her people have cultivated so assiduously for most of her adult life. But Spears has always been about a manufactured image, and I honestly wonder if she has the intelligence and personal insight to forge her own look and identity.
Lumière:
--- Quote from: moremojo on September 11, 2007, 06:38:28 pm ---
I do not think that outfit is at all flattering to her; again, I think she would serve herself well to adopt a more mature style more consistent with her years and position in life, and to leave behind the naughty-girl persona her people have cultivated so assiduously for most of her adult life.
--- End quote ---
I agree. :)
It is exhausting to read the paper and see all these young actresses going to jail for this that and the other. Dang.
Why can't we hear more about the ones who have their businesses in order?! Would be so refreshing for when I glance at the Entertainment section of the morning paper! Alas, such is our celebrity-obsessed world.. :)
MaineWriter:
From the Globe and Mail....interesting commentary since we are on this issue:
Britney's bod: Was the criticism fair?
JOCELYN NOVECK
Associated Press
September 11, 2007 at 2:04 AM EDT
NEW YORK — 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?
Certainly people were curious to see her. The show drew 7.1 million viewers Sunday, up 23 per cent over last year's VMAs, and was the highest-rated cable program of the year among people aged 12 to 34, according to Nielsen Media Research.
On the morning after what the VH1 channel called Spears' “already historic” performance, the blogosphere was buzzing with opinions. For every “fat” comment there was an impassioned retort. “Give her a break,” wrote one blogger on Aboutthink.com. “The girl's had two kids — I hope I'm a size 10 after having kids!”
“OK, she isn't fat,” wrote another. “But she isn't fit enough to be wearing (or not wearing) what she is.”
For many observers, the issue was not so much the body, but the body in that outfit.
“In that ensemble, you just can't have an ounce of anything extra,” said Janice Min, editor of the celebrity magazine US Weekly. “Many women wouldn't eat for days if they were wearing that.”
“Did she look better than 99 per cent of women? Yes,” added Min. “But compared to her earlier form, she probably didn't look as good.”
Besides, said Min, “Britney Spears has always been about the whole package. It's never been 100 per cent about the talent. Is it sexist? Probably, but she's built a career on an image of sexiness.”
Talk of Spears' physique comes amid an increasingly critical focus on overly skinny actresses in Hollywood, who've largely replaced supermodels as the world's fashion plates. It's hard to pick up a celebrity magazine without a critical photo of, say, Angelina Jolie's birdlike arms. And curvy actresses are getting positive attention, from Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson of “Dreamgirls” to Golden Globe-winner America Ferrara of TV's “Ugly Betty.”
In the fashion industry, there's been an effort to promote healthier-looking models. “Girls aren't looking as skinny this season as they did,” said Suze Yalof Scwhartz, executive editor-at-large for Glamour Magazine. “There's food backstage. They're looking sexier.” At Glamour, she noted, a model won't be featured “if she shows too much clavicle.”
The nastier headlines about Spears are uncalled for, Schwartz said, but at the same time, “when you walk around the stage in a black bikini in front of millions of viewers, people are going to notice.” She added that though Spears doesn't have the perfect body she once did, “Most women would die for the body she has now.”
An obvious question is whether a male performer would have been subjected to the same standards. Many would say no; Dave Zinczenko, editor of Men's Health magazine, says yes.
“Listen, any time you go on national television and dance in barely any clothing, you're going to be facing a lot of scrutiny,” Zinczenko says. “Anybody would be asking for it.” Not that many people weren't pulling for Spears, he notes: “If she had come back, she would have been the toast of the country.”
And certainly she had a lot to come back from over the past few years: Well-documented parenting mishaps — remember the baby on her lap in the driver's seat? A messy divorce from husband Kevin Federline. The famous crotch photos. The bizarre head-shaving incident. Rehab.
And now this.
“I kind of feel bad for her,” said Shelley Wade, a DJ at New York City pop station Z100. “She looked really nervous. And then now, I'm looking at all these blogs this morning about how everybody thinks she's fat and I'm like, ‘What! Fat?' She wasn't fat.”
How all this will impact Spears' career, and sales of her new album, has yet to be seen. “I just felt like that performance was make or break for her comeback,” says Wade. “Now with last night's performance, she's just kind of put herself back in the same boat ... everybody thinks she's a train wreck.”
But the single of “Gimme More,” the song she destroyed onstage, is off to a great start in the Top 40, says Sean Ross of Edison Research, which tracks radio play. “A great VMA performance would have probably closed the deal for her, but she's still got until Thanksgiving to do other good performances and to release a strong album with other hits on it,” he said.
In any case, it seems it would never be wise to write an obituary of Spears' career.
“With everything Britney, we think this is the last chance,” says Min. “The fact is, it never is.
“At least this puts attention back on her as a performer. My sense is she'd rather be judged on that than on the rehab, the drinking and the partying.”
LauraGigs:
--- Quote ---She's getting a bit too old to successfully pull off this bad-girl, hoochy spiel on which she's built almost her whole career . . .
I think she would serve herself well to adopt a more mature style more consistent with her years and position in life . . .
--- End quote ---
Sheez, she's still quite young. Dancers on Broadway & in Vegas wear less — well into their 30s.
And let's not forget Mick Jagger, Steven Tyler, Prince, Peter Gabriel, Robert Plant, etc. etc. etc. who — well into their 40s and 50s — present themselves as veritable seething volcanoes of male virility.
Are women supposed to stop expressing themselves sexually at the ripe old age of "late twenties"?
injest:
It was just THAT particular bikini...if she had made an effort she could have wrote a check and got a stylist to find her something sexy that was not so blocky and stark. I don't know who designed the thing but I don't hear anyone bragging about it was theirs...
I would imagine if Eminem came out in a Speedo we would be talking about his incredibly bad taste...so not so sexist I think...
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