Oh, it’s a circus alright…
I’m not sure what I found more surprising on Saturday night. Britney Jean Spears’ car-crash “appearance” on The X-Factor (“appearance” being the operative word as her gurning lip-syncing left “listening” a little tricky) or the public’s shocked reaction to it. What was everyone expecting? Leona Lewis? The girl even made last week’s Same Difference Stepford zygotes look accomplished…
As ITV reminded us during every ten minute advert-break, the princess of pop “was BACK”…cue hysterical screaming from the studio audience and redundant retrospective flashbacks of Spears’ career of yore – redundancy being the term-du-jour – as millions of prime time viewers (12.8 million to be exact) sat back on their sofas, wholly aware that Ms Spears seems barely aware what date her next custody-battle is on, let alone where she is, what she really wants to be doing, or what she should be singing; yet deliciously lapping up the spectacle like driving past a hit and run on the M4.
Was it really such a surprise that Ms Spears was clearly not back where she belongs?
Surprise or not, the studio audience wooped and hollared as the judges gallantly rose to give her a standing ovation – less applauding a triumphant return to form and more clapping out of sheer relief that she managed to fly to london in one-piece, turn up to the studio on time and at least get her lifeless body on stage at the right time (even if her mind and spirit seemed to be somewhere else entirely.) Bravo, Britney is still alive! Three cheers for Xanax!
As the fawning Dermot O’ Leary tried to disguise his bemusement, Britney Spears gave confused and apathetic answers to all of his two questions. Did she enjoy watching the contestants sing? “Its really fun to be back in London” she disconnectedly replied.
Previously to this in-depth Q & A, we were treated to Britney’s comeback performance – her first in six whole years, we were reminded again and again like senile deliquants. After an hour of mindless hype we were finally presented with the Toxic icon herself, clad in a pop-staple outfit of cabaret-inspired black hot pants and fish net stockings…a clumsy attempt at emulating her heroine Madonna…who clumsily stole the look from a heroine who can actually sing and dance, Liza Minnelli. The homecoming queen then proceeded to badly lip-sync whilst she stamped her way through a bizarre dance routine that seemed to have more in common with Strictly’s John Sergeant…
Bizarre not only because the song in question ‘Womanizer’ seemed to have just one word to remember throughout…”wo-ma-nizer/wo-ma-nizer/wo-ma-nizer/oh, you get the picture”, but perhaps more significantly because this performance seemed to sum up her own descent into puppet show monotony. Watching Spears grapple with miming inane lyrics and losing spectacularly, I couldn’t help but interprete it as an apt metaphor for the current circus that surrounds her and our own celebrity-quaffing collusion in it. The words coming out of her mouth on Saturday night weren’t hers – but were they ever hers to begin with? Who the hell is the real Britney? Does anyone even care anymore?
Having produced an album that seems to address the ‘circus’ of her own life, but disappointingly addresses none of it, we seem further away from understanding just what went wrong with America’s darling…the epitomy of their deluded selfmade dream…now nothing more than a performing seal, with a father controlling every asset and civil-freedom on “her behalf” it seems the X factor is not the only stage she now lip-syncs on.
