Britney’s Wedding

After the news of Britney Spears's 55-hour marriage to her childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander, I got an e-mail from one of my many homosexual correspondents (you'd be surprised), one with whom I had previously had some friendly exchanges about same-sex marriage. The gist of it was: "This is the institution you are trying to save?"

I take his point. I don't say I feel any better-disposed towards homosexual marriage than I was pre-Britney, but there is no denying the guy has a debating point. If a couple of likkered-up glitterati airheads can stumble into a wedding chapel, tie the knot, then go home, sleep off the liquor, decide that, while an amusing lark, it hadn't really been such a good idea after all, and cancel the whole thing, why should a sober and responsible homosexual couple be denied access to that same chapel for that same purpose, which they intend to take with all the gravity proper to it?

The short answer is that if a customary social institution is trashed and trivialized by irresponsible buffoons, we ought to exert more control over it — to tighten access, not loosen it. If it turns out that there has been chicanery in the counting of votes, that is an argument for making supervision of the voting rules stricter, not for opening the voting booths to felons, foreigners, lunatics, and minors. Things are for whom they are for. Voting is for law-abiding adult citizens of sound mind; marriage is for men and women; the fact that either institution might have been abused in some particular instance does not make a case for altering fundamental definitions. Speaking as a person who has watched from the sidewalk as the Gay Pride parade made its way down Manhattan's Fifth Avenue one balmy summer's day, I have no confidence at all — not a jot, tittle, nor smidgeon of confidence, sorry — that opening up marriage to homosexuals will raise the general level of seriousness and respect which the institution enjoys in our society. The contrary effect seems to me infinitely more probable.

Be all that as it may, I don't think it can be denied that the Britney-wedding fiasco is an embarrassment not just to the people involved, but in some way to the rest of us too. On reflection, it is hard to pin down why this should be so. Here are a couple of young people with much more money than sense. The state of Nevada has stupid marriage laws, and the young people took advantage of those laws for a few hours' idle amusement. Why should anybody care? Where's the moral?

Well, to take the least consequential aspect of the matter first, I think we should care for Britney Spears, as a matter of simple humanity. The December 8 issue of that fine magazine National Review ("All Human Life Is There") carried a brief editorial paragraph along these lines:

I wouldn't want to make too much of this, and it is, as I said, the least consequential aspect of the matter, but don't you feel, as I do, that there is something slightly pathetic about Britney's deed? In fact, about Britney? Of course, it is no easy matter to summon up a tear for someone whose net worth is in the same range as Tanzania's. Nor is it easy to believe that the lady has much insight into her own condition, assuming that condition is what I am suggesting it is — utter spiritual vacuity. From a recent Newsweek interview:

Much more surprising than the fact that Britney cannot place Hinduism in the grand scheme of things is that she can so place kabbalah. What does a nice blonde shiksa know about kabbalah? Her friend and role model Madonna is "into" it, that's what. In their set, it's this month's cool religion. That's the kind of people Britney hangs out with. Her taste in society could only be worse if she spent her leisure time frolicking among Bonobo chimps.

Even the beauty may be a depreciating asset. Britney is, I'd like to make it clear, not my type. Her beauty is of an artificial, abstract, and magaziney sort, like a perfectly-cut gemstone, with nothing quirky or curious or interesting for the attention to fix itself on. I further suspect that, without very strenuous efforts on Britney's part, the bloom will soon be off the rose. She looks to me like a woman who is naturally heavy — check out her thighs, for instance. (You already have? Sorry.) It is very unfair that there should be anything wrong with heaviness in a woman, but there is no denying that, so far as most men are concerned, as a matter of simple physical attractiveness, there is something wrong with it. A character in one of Kingsley Amis's novels goes to a psychoanalyst complaining of loss of libido. The shrink asks if the guy is married, and he says yes. The shrink's next question is: "How much does your wife weigh?"

Well, perhaps I am reading too much into a few squeezed-out TV tears and a stunt that seemed to be trying to say more than the usual celebrity-stunt's "Hey, look at me!" Perhaps the lady can take care of herself well enough. Very likely she can. She may not know Vishnu from the Pillsbury Dough Boy, but she's spent most of her life in showbiz and presumably knows the location of the exit, if she wants it. Let's turn our attention to The Culture, of which she is an adornment and emblem. Frankly, I care about The Culture more than I care about Britney.

Unfortunately, the region of The Culture that Britney adorns — pop music — is one I don't know much about. Like most middle-aged people, I have a vague feeling I don't like current pop, but I don't actually know much about it. When I try to go exploring to improve my understanding, I get lost almost immediately.

I listened to a lot of pop music when younger. Around age 16 I could have sung my way through the entire Top Twenty, I am pretty sure, accompanying myself on air guitar. That was a while ago, though. I haven't paid serious attention to pop music for a couple of decades. If I look into it now, I find a bewildering variety of styles and genres, very few of which I can place relative to what I know. What, exactly, is the difference between Cow Punk, Pop Punk, and Ska Punk? Between U.S. New Wave and U.K. New Wave? Is Pop Rap a kind of Pop, or a kind of Rap? Why is Electro Funk grouped under "Electronica" in record catalogs, while G-Funk is under "R&B"? I've known Rockabilly from way back, but what in God's good name is Psychobilly? I think I know what Heavy Metal is, but what is Thrash Metal? What are Black Metal, Atmospheric Metal, Doom Metal, Cold Dark Metal, Technical Death Metal, and Speed Metal? You need a Dewey Decimal System to sort through this stuff.

For an old fart like me, this is all a bit unnerving. It is, of course, just another aspect of the explosion of choices in the postindustrial consumer society, like having 44 varieties of breakfast cereal to choose from. The fact that I find it intimidating is mostly my own personal and generational problem. In my teen years there was Trad Jazz, Modern Jazz, Rock, Pop, Folk, and Country. That was pretty much it, though pioneer critics like Nik Cohn were beginning to teach us to separate out, for example, High School from other Soft Pop. Anything beyond these categories was Classical or Experimental. It was the same with everything back then. We didn't have a choice of a hundred different "calling plans"; we had The Phone Company. In England, this was actually operated by the government — it was a branch of the post office, run to the same standards of efficiency, technical innovation, and responsiveness to customers' desires.

I remember all too well what that was like, and cherish the abundance and variety of today, and so on general grounds I approve of all this variety. Still, it makes it hard for me to place Britney even in her own zone, let alone in The Culture at large. There is nothing for it but to watch the lady in action and form an ad hoc opinion. When I do that, however, my goodwill drains away.

Britney Spears's stage act is a kind of soft porn singing and dancing. The singing: lots of breathy sounds, moaning, and sighing, not much melody. The dancing: very suggestive, with much pouting and hip thrusting. It's all tremendously "technical" and "professional," of course, with an extravagant light show, exquisite costumes, and dance routines choreographed and drilled down to the last lift of an eyebrow. It is still porn, though — the kind of thing that, you imagine, the gaudier kind of oriental despotism would have laid on for the amusement of the coarser kind of barbarian conqueror. In a way this is very democratic. Unlike the peasant subjects of that oriental despot huddled in their huts, we can all partake of the entertainment nowadays. The word decadence comes irresistibly to mind, though. How much better if the barbarians had stayed out there on the steppe and left us alone!

And it isn't the thing itself so much as its targeted audience that disturbs us. Eartha Kitt and Julie London were doing the breathy stuff back in the 1950s, after all, while Elvis Presley's hip thrusts were too much for the TV censors 47 years ago. Nor is the trivializing of the marriage service altogether new: The name Zsa Zsa Gabor mean anything? Eartha and Julie were singing for adults, though, while Elvis was a guy, and Zsa Zsa at least took the property side of marriage seriously — I mean, she stayed married long enough each time to acquire some diamonds. Britney has been doing the suggestive stuff since she was 16, and for a mostly female fan base mostly younger than that; while the unsettling thing about her "marriage" was its utter purposelessness. The wife of Maryland's governor, addressing a conference on domestic abuse, declared that she would shoot Britney Spears if she had a gun. Mothers in the audience applauded. I can't say I blame them.

It is a given that one generation doesn't like another generation's pleasures. As Dr. Johnson put it in his straightforward way: "Why, Sir, our tastes greatly alter. The lad does not care for the child's rattle, and the old man does not care for the young man's whore." Giving all possible benefit of the doubt to Britney Spears, though, I see nothing redeeming in her act. You can't even sing the songs yourself, or play them on air guitar. For this Buddy Holly died?

An awful suspicion forms in my mind. The empty lewdness of the stage act; the bottomless nothingness in Britney's eyes and words; all that emptiness and nothingness and purposelessness; the trashing of our culture's most hallowed ceremony... for what? Can it be...? Yes! I only hope I can get the word out before they track me down.

Listen: Britney Spears is an instrument of Satan. The poor girl has sold her soul, or had it stolen from her. That travesty of a marriage was not for nothing — it was a union in evil! Its issue will be the Antichrist, and the world will be his dominion. These are the Last Times. You have been warned.

Saw them many times many moons ago. One of the original members Brian Gregory - the real spooky looking one - unfortunately passed on last year.

I'm sure that there are a few Garage/Psychobilly fans lurking about the dark recesses of FR. (typing while listening to the 13th Floor Elevators and Sonics. My office mates are convinced I'm a bit odd)

Saw them many times many moons ago.

Me too, at the Roxy and Whiskey-a-Go-Go, among other places. Ack. At one point I was sure that I had every album and obscure import. Not that there were that many, but all I can say is... Yikes.

I didn't know Brian Gregory passed on but then again, he was the type which would make a person wonder, "Isn't he dead?" :-/

I think back to the bands that I loved when I was younger. Yes, Steely Dan, Led Zepplin, etc., etc. I loved their music.

And in most cases it was music. And memorable, memorable solos ... there are still many solos that rattle around my head, even if I've not heard the song for years.

I don't claim to have listened to much in the way of pop music for 20 years or so -- but what I have heard is notably lacking in things that have made popular music interesting in the past.

Pop music is gaining more people like her because the record producers are becoming more controlling, they need maleable airheads that will stand in one place showing exactly as much cleavage as ordered and too dense to have an opinion on anything that might alienate the audience.

I'm convinced, BTW, that this is where the music download "industry" puts the major labels in the greatest danger. Big names can't really market interesting stuff, because their overhead is too high to gamble on small-market stuff. Plus which, they're so huge that they're too ponderous to shift direction easily. Slutney, for example, is a tool of AOL/Time/Warner -- she's a brand name to them.

Their entire setup is based on having a captive audience -- you have to listen to it on the radio; you have to buy it at a record store, and you have to pay $15 for the CD....

The internet turns this model on its head. There is almost no overhead, beyond maintenance of the server. There is nothing to limit listening to stations on the radio dial. The big record labels are going to kill themselves by peddling this pap.

Now, is there still a place for big labels? Maybe -- symphonic music, for example, takes a lot of overhead.... But even then, it's likely that each organization will be able to create its own "albums," and sell those via internet also.

New times a coming?

I'm still not convinced the internet will be a useful way to introduce artists to a new audience. But source music movie and TV soundtracks (like the Sopranos) should manage to fill that space nicely.

One of the things I find most interesting is how music and TV are following the same doomed path and to a degree the people in charge can see it's a path to doom but for whatever reason they just can't get off the path. Both industries have become so risk averse at the upper level that their cookie cuttering themselves to death. If you watch any shows that talk about 70s TV or music you'll hear a similar sentence over and over: "this show/album could never get made today". Nobody today would make All in the Family, Streets of San Fransisco, The Wall or Yessongs. And then they wonder why music sales and TV ratings are down.

Of course with all that being said the end isn't actually in sight. Yeah music sales are "down" but they're still being measured in the hundreds of millions (I think 2003 was like 680 million moved by RIAA labels alone). There aren't many industries that can complain about "only" selling 680 million units.

I found the bands I've come to like by watching videos on Launch.com, which is free with my ISP. 90% of the time I hit "NEVER SHOW THIS TO ME AGAIN." There's a lot of sick stuff out there and it doesn't usually take ten seconds to identify and discard something.

But when I do find something I like, I go out and buy it. I bought several BNL CDs, one Coldplay, Josh Groban, and Toby Keith because I was able to sample their music for free on the internet. My husband has purchased Loreena McKinnett (sp?) and other Celtic sounding music on the strength of samples online. I never listen to anything but talk radio so I wouldn't have discovered new music in that traditional way. Commercial radio seems to alternate between commercials that scream and "music" that screams. My local oldies station has an extremely stale playlist (Love Potion No. 9, mostly, I think) and I think by and large my age group and older have been far too neglected by the music industry. Shame on ClearChannel--they ought to have figured out by now that there's an audience they aren't reaching! Many of us in this market won't go to concerts because they are uncomfortable. Too loud. Too crowded. We want our creature comforts. But we have money to spend, and they haven't gotten much of it through Brittney and Madonna and the other underdressed icons they try to shove down our throats.

Britney will be dead in an alley long before Madonna leaves off. Madonna actually took charge of her own career which kept her from being discarded by the industry the way they're trying to discard Britney.

I don't think music is more manipulative, I don't think you can get more manipulative than 60s protest music. The INDUSTRY on the other hand has gotten positively brutal in it's lust for every possible dollar.

yeah, somewhere along the lines they got too addicted to the business part of the music business and stopped having fun. There was a time when the music biz was about short weedy guys doing coke with big stars and peeling off a couple of groupies. You'd think being more professional would have helped things, but instead their primary concern is the inches of flesh on poster/ poster sales ratio and maximizing verticle markets. Somebody needs to get the sex and drugs back into the rock and roll.

As you know, this is not a topic I'm up on but even I can tell things have changed and commercializing a person like Britney not only makes her a ho but the industry that creates her a pimp after "dates" for his ho.

Which brings us back to this article. Derbyshire is correct: Britney Spears is best described as an instrument of Satan. And if this is correct, then we would have to classify the nice folks in The Industry as Satan's minions -- Screwtapes.

Now, whether or not this Satan is real or figurative (I lean strongly toward the former), it cannot be denied that the goal here is to gain control of the culture, and the people in it, so that ... whomever ... can rake in money and power. And to do that requires them to destroy anything that they cannot control, which (given human perversity) pretty much requires them to get rid of whatever is good.

I'm uncomfortable calling anyone an instrument of Satan. It's Britney's fault she's dumb as a box of rocks (no offense intended to the many fine rocks in the world), it's her mom's fault she has no sense of modesty, and it's some music executives fault she has more money than she knows what to do with. Satan might be giggling like a school girl at her antics but blame should stay with the people at fault: Britney and her circle.

Satan might be giggling like a school girl at her antics but blame should stay with the people at fault: Britney and her circle.

Satan is more than happy to work with the willing.

And if it were just Britney (or Madonna, or Christina Aguilera, or any one of several hundred others....) I would be inclined to agree with you.

But when you look at the way things are done today -- seems like every pop star either starts out as a blonde bimbo or becomes one -- it's too systematic. That "cookie cutter" analogy is correct. I'm just more willing than you to attribute the underlying cause to more than mere stupidity and greed.

the blonde bimbo's success makes sense to me: teenagers lke cleavage and bleach is cheap. It's systematic because that's how the entertainment industry works, they always try to copy the latest success and one up what they think made it successful hoping for more success. That's why you get clones in every part of the entertainment industry. You start with Quintin Tarentino making a movie with lots of blood and swearing and non-linear editing and the next thing you know you've got a dozen movies out with more blood more swearing and less linear editing. Pearl Jam hit big with the flannel and fuzz box and BAMMO a dozen bands came out of Seattle wearing more flannel and using more fuzz box. Ever since "the poster" of Farrah Fawcett every aspect of the entertainment industry has been trying to give us more curvy bottle blondes wearing less clothing and standing in a more revealing way. And until a string of them show up that don't make money they'll keep pushing the envelop in that direction, the entertainment industry needs 4 to 10 failures in a row before they decide that direction is used up, and so far scantily clad blondes are a license to print money.

Even worse was her performance on the NFL Kickoff Concert. She didn't even lip-synch well, it seemed as if she didn't know the words and her mouth wasn't moving at the same time as the track.

She didn't even really dance, just strut around the stage. Her backup dancers would strike poses, and she would walk over and dry hump them.

Then, at the end, her dancers stripped off her pants to reveal a pair of short-shorts, and then carefully adjusted said shorts for her. It all seemed so clinical. Selling sexuality to children requires that it all seem symbolic, and that is why she does it so well. None of it seems to be actually SEXY, just stylized and robotic.

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