Britney Spears engaged to Kevin Federline: Ken mark 2 for Barbie
www.lnreview.co.uk/links/002021.php
June 28, 2004
My, hasn't Britney grown? Hardly a blink of an eye ago she was dropping her schoolbooks on the floor and blushing, and now she’s onto her second wedding.
"I can confirm that yes, she is engaged," said Sonia Muckle, a spokesperson for Jive Records. And this just six months after Britney married her childhood friend, Jason Alexander, in Vegas. 55 hours the marriage lasted. Sad really; if the union had survived for 60 hours the couple could have celebrated their turd anniversary before splitting.
Six months on, Spears, 22, has put her Vegas blip behind her, and is clearly taking marriage much more seriously. She is engaged to dancer Kevin Federline, 26, which is great news! Except for Shar Jackson, Federline's former girlfriend and star of the TV show Moesha, who is eight months pregnant with Federline's child. Federline and Jackson already have a two-year-old daughter. What a heartwarming mess. If Spears and Federline time it right, they can walk up the aisle just as Jackson is dilating.
Or perhaps they could just take a deep breath and not get engaged. Find something else to do with their time, like throw a pool party, or rent a bunch of movies. Go on a turkey shoot with Ted Nugent. Anything.
Odd that at a time when America and the Anglican Church are wrestling so manfully with gay marriages – and when, as a result, the sanctity of marriage is being trumpeted louder than ever before – the institution has never been cheaper and emptier in the world of entertainment.
One would not like to doubt that Britney sees marriage as a sacred institution – rendered more sacred every time Jennifer Lopez puts on a wedding dress – but one has to doubt whether, in this case, any kind of meaningful union is being marked.
But perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised to witness Britney going through the motions with an empty exchange of promises. Empty is what Britney mostly is. Consider her history...
The success of “Britney Spears” (the most carefully and cleverly manufactured pop-product of recent years) was founded upon a very specific sexual prototype: the half-innocent, half-naughty St. Trinian’s girl-woman; the virgin in fishnets. Already, she's a cipher. True, she’s been well made, you can’t see the glue-marks where her nylon hair meets her scalp, but look into her plastic Barbie eyes and you see nothing. Glossy and flat as a Danish porn mag is Britney.
Of course, what’s particularly sickening about the JonBenet woman-child schoolgirl sex toy image of 1999 Britney is that it is a pretend-child playing a part written by middle-aged men. And however old Britney grows, her image remains resolutely 2-D.
From the flat cherry pop in 1999, via the potty training of Oops… I Did It Again, we come to the urgent, sweaty, post-September-11 Britney whose husky claim I’m A Slave 4 U is one of the most poignant admissions in the history of popular music. She may have quidzillion pounds, but her personality is as thin as a 20 dollar bill.
Nothing Britney has ever done has rung true. Truth has to have substance, and Britney has none. She’s isn’t really anyone. She’s not marrying anyone. This is no engagement. There is no fiancé. Confetti won’t fall.
Move along. Nothing to see.