Monday, September 10, 2007

How is this out of shape?

Two entertainment things of note, although at wildly different ends of the spectrum.

While I didn't see the MTV Music Video Awards, I have read a couple of the stories about how the awards went. And without exception they've all mentioned how terrible Britney Spears was during the opening musical number. This is but one example.

Now, I'm about the last person on Earth to have any sympathy for Spears and the freefall her career has been in the last couple of years. And if she faded completely away from our collective pop culture awareness, I would be a perfectly happy person. I have no problem with people ripping her for lip-syncing badly to her song or that her dancing was horrible or that she seemed confused while on stage. If you're a performer, get used to people criticizing your performance on stage.

But how on Earth is this out of shape?


(credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com)

What kind of retarded pop culture world do we live in where a woman looks like that and is considered not just out of shape, but embarrassingly out of shape? Jesus Christ. I want to give her a sandwich.

Meanwhile, in an area about as far removed from anorexic, burnt out pop princesses as you can get, there's this surreal article about Lynn Johnston. Last week was notable for the For Better or For Worse strip in that Johnston began her long expected flashbacks in the strip. Rather than cancelling the strip or just repeating old ones, Johnston wants to mesh old strips she did 30 years ago with new material.

It was meant as a way of cutting back on how much work she was doing for health reasons and to spend more time with her husband.

Who, apparently, left her back in April to go and be with another woman.

Considering how long I've read the strip and considering it is semi-autobiographical, it's just strange to think what Johnston is going through. One of the risks of doing that kind of strip. Although now, perhaps just as weird, Johnston is saying she might mix more new material into the strip now that she has more time on her hands than she anticipated. And she's going to continue to write John Patterson in the strip and has no intention for the comic strip characters to divorce.

Well, if nothing else perhaps it will stop people from bitching at her that she brought Liz and Anthony together in the strip.

Nah, probably not...

6 comments:

Jessica said...

MSNBC actually ran a pretty good article on Britney's performance -- it wasn't nearly as harsh as anyone else, and is definitely much more critical of the excuses made for her performance than Britney herself.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20722222/

Basically the point of the article is, if you sucked, you sucked. But don't try to make ridiculous excuses. I think it comes down to the same thing -- people are absurdly critical. I sure as hell would never get my fat ass into that bikini and prance around stage on national TV. Everyone's life is in the shitter sometimes.

Sheena said...

It's only out of shape if you're a pop princess. If some random looked like that, she'd be called hot. But there's a whole different social expectation for famous people.

If you ever see a picture of a celeb without makeup or photoshopping, and they perfectly normal, like anyone on the street, it will get posted all over the internet and tabloids with headlines about how UGLY they are.

Anonymous said...

Hey, she was all skinny and toned, and showing it off... Now she is way not toned, and showing it off... as if she were the same pre-two-kids teenage pop star.

That's the beef. *I* would wear that outfit on stage.. but I'm that kinda guy! ;-)

Besides that, she suuu-uuucks!

towniebastard said...

Yes, thank you for reminding me of that, Andrew. Dear god, the horror.

You know, I am writing a fictionalized account of my time with the Muse right night and am trying to recall stories to use as fodder. You bragging about how you had more lingerie than your girlfriends might just make it in there...

Unknown said...

I didn't think she looked fat, just like a woman who had 2 kids and has no time for the gym between rounds of P.R. fiascos.

It was the fact she wore a bikini and stillettos like she was still that taunt teenaged lolita she was depicted as all those years ago. That was not a flattering outfit. It was like watching someone's mom try to fit in at a nightclub - wait, that's exactly what it was.


If she hit the stage in some Dolce Gabbana gown or something like that, she would have made the right impression.

God I've have spent way too much time thinking about that performance.

Anonymous said...

I look forward to reading about my exploits... make me larger than life!