"The Importance of Being Britney"
Inside Britney Spears's tan-and-gold tour bus, the shiniest, sparkliest(sluttiest) pop star in the world is sitting at the dinette table, ready to head for the engagement on her Oops!...I Did It Again concert tour at the Smirnoff Music Centre in Dallas. But she's also, predictably, on MTV, which is running a two-hour special featuring Britney, all Britney, everything you could ever want to know about Britney. "Oh Fee, y'all just missed it!"(y'all??? what a stupid hick...) Spears yells when her family-friend-cum-personal-assistant, Felicia Culottta, climbs onboard. "They just showed me doing '...Baby One More Time' live. That was the best f--in' performanc!"(oooooh Britters is a potty-mouth!!!) Everyone here is in complete agreement. Spears's mom, Lynne, is beaming with pride. Culotta, a former dental technician, is Spears's biggest fan. All are bewitched by her angelic and tan tummy as it is regularly shown on cable(and that's something to be proud of???). We see Spears as a little girl, all ringlets and child-star earnestness, winning her first singing contest on Star Search. ("Oh, watch the other girl's face when Britney wins," Culotta says, cracking up. "Look! She won't even hug her!")*(that's actually kinda mean, so what if the girl didn't hug that STD-spreading skank?) Then, Lynne appears on-screen, talking about how her young daughter was obsessed with putting on impromptu performances. ("It was kind of annoying," she quips.)**(you don't have to tell me twice...) Next, the MTV voice-over dramatizes the ups and downs of Spears's early career(what ups?): her move to New York at age eight in attempt to be discovered, her stint on the Mickey Mouse Club with Christina Aguilera (we freakin' know about the damn MMC), and the signing of the fifteen-year-old with a demo tape and a dream at Jive Records.
Finally, the pop star emerges as she was on her 1999 tour, in a blue catsuit with really big hair. The in-person Britney covers her face with hands(I would cover my face if I were her, too). "I thought I was so cool," she wails, mortified. And that's when MTV Britney screams "Whassup?" at the audience(oh no...Justin's ghetto-ness is rubbing off...), before breaking into an overeager version of her first hit. Screaming "I can't watch this,"(that's what I say every time I see her) in-person Britney runs to the back of the bus and hides (sometimes i run, sometimes i hide, sometimes i'm scared of you.....). When we arrive backstage at the empty 20,000-seat amphitheater(hahaha!!! the theater is empty!!!*note: i know the show hasn't started yet, i'm not stupid), it looks as though a little girl's bedroom has exploded(looks like Britters likes to have a lot of things enhanced); life-size teddy bears wearing pink Britney T-shirts, pastel beach balls(something tells me those aren't BEACH balls, if ya know what i mean), and tinsel-covered sets are scattered around the stage, along with instruments, amplifiers, and
electrical cords. We retreat to the dressing room, and still, Spears is on MTV(why the fuck does she keep on watching herself?) It's surreal. In-person Britney is fussing over her puppy, a Yorkie named Bitsy(i could've sworn that i heard her say her dog's name was Baby once.). MTV Britney is bubbling over while promoting her newest video, "Lucky." However, this time Spears doesn't cover her face in shame. That she would like to spend the hours before her show watching...her show...becomes obvious. "Mama," she says in her dulcet Southern accent, "could you go ask someone if they can tape this for me?" (can't tape the show yourself, skank? it's not that hard; just put in an empty tape, press record, and play. i guess that she just didn't want to get her lazy ass up...)
Meet Britney Spears. You definitely know her. You may or may not appreciate her (do people appreciate having cinder blocks thrown at their heads???)("There are Britney people and non-Britney people," as Spears likes to say.) But either way, her sophomore effort(***key word
there:***EFFORT***), Oops!...I Did It Again, has sold more than five million copies; when it was intially released, it beat the record set by Mariah Carey for the highest single-week sales ever by a female solo artist. Her first album has sold an astonishing twelve million copies. Spears is a living(not for long), breathing(like i said, not for long), pop phenomenom with sponsorship deals from heavyweights like Polaroid, and she has Hollywood delivering (porn) scripts to her tour bus in the hopes that she will bring a little stardust their way. "The Britney Spears story is very simple," says Tom Calderone, senior vice president of music and talent for MTV. "The way the audience lets us know what they want is through their requests, and they want Britney. Even before[her next] video comes out, people are demanding to see it."Like Aguilera and Nsync, Spears is a cornerstone of the new "tween" market, which consists of six- to twelve-year-olds who spend an estimated $24 billion a year on clothing and entertainment(umm, other people on earth buy cloths, and pay for entertainment, too...). Even better, Spears has that buzzword of all buzzwords(buzzwords??? what the hell was this person smoking???): crossover appeal. She's been on the cover of Rolling Stone twice(with the way that she was on the cover of RS, that's nothing to be proud of), and everywhere men are perking up at the merest mention of her taut abdomen. The undeniable proof: One anonymous male admirer reportedly went so far as to publicly offer Spears $17 million for a night in bed, which was flatly refused(i bet that if the guy hadn't made the offer publicly she would have agreed). After all, Britney Spears isn't that kind of girl. And she certainly doesn't need the money.
Did I mention that Spears is getting married to Justin Timberlake, of Nsync? How perfect is that(like so totally perfect, like yay!!!)? Well, not quite. First of all, it isn't true. "It's so funny, this whole thing about us getting engaged," Spears says, sitting cross-legged on the black leather couch in her dressing room. "Justin and I totally laughed about it. I told him during my show I would wear a big-ass(potty-mouth ALERT!!!) ring and do it like this[she holds a pretend microphone with her ring finger sticking out], just to keep people talking."(Can we say bitch?)