Salacious Tarts, UNITE!

I am a Britney Spears fan. I’ve been a fan since …Baby, One More Time. I own all the albums and the majority of them, I actually went to the store to buy.

I am the most uncloseted Britney fan you will EVER meet. Guaranteed.

The funny thing about celebrities is that, all too often, we see them as these untouchable, God-like creatures who don’t go to the bathroom and who don’t (or shouldn’t) have issues. I think that’s where the majority of the problem lies.

Celebrities can’t make mistakes. Hell, they can’t even go outside wearing sweats and t-shirt without being scrutinized and mocked and flashed all over the tabloids and television. It’s so weird! I can’t imagine a life where I couldn’t just sit at Starbucks in my Saturday uniform (yoga pants, tank top and tennies) drinking a latte and reading a book without being harassed in some manner or another. What kind of a life is that?

I often find myself reading review of music and movies on Plugged In, Focus on the Family’s pop culture website. I used to appreciate the reviews for what they were, but then they went and really distorted a Will Smith song a few years ago. After I wrote a rather scathing letter to the reviewer, I began reading the reviews with different eyes…and probably with some amount of mental masochism.

I just read their review of Circus by Britney. I’ll be the first to admit that there are moments on the album that are rather…tarty. “If U Seek Amy” is probably the finest example (and if you haven’t figured out by now that she’s saying “F-U-C-K me”, well, now you know). The woman is a sex symbol. Let’s be clear about that. She’s not someone I’d want my daughter to idolize. She’s not the ideal role model…she never really was (which begs the question: does any celebrity ever WANT to be a role model? Or is that forced upon them?).

But in the same breath, let’s also be clear that she’s a 27-year-old single mother. She has issues. She probably has a mental illness in the form of bi-polar disorder or something like it.

I can’t really imagine what it must have been like to go through a painful divorce and custody battle in front of the world and then have a forced institutionalization splashed all over everywhere. That’s horrible! And shame on the media for doing it.

So when Focus on the Family calls her a “Salacious Tart” I say better a tart who is getting her life together than a whacked out little girl on the verge of losing her children.

Better a scantily clad woman who can provide for her family than a flip-flop wearin’ nut case who can hardly drag herself from her bed.

Better a woman who can be proud of herself and her accomplishments again than someone who appeared to be on the fast track to unintended personal demise.

A friend once told me that one week at church, her pastor actually asked that his parishioners pray for the girl rather than soak up one more sloppy report of her. I have to agree with him. Be honest: if you had a friend, or even a mere acquaintance, who was going through a divorce and custody battle and then just started teetering on the brink of insanity, what would you do? Pray for her or hope she did something else nutty so you had something to talk about at the water cooler? Would you send good thoughts into the universe or wait around for her to fall off the deep end and not do anything?

So with my trip to Vegas for her show looming mere weeks away, I say MORE POWER TO THE BRITTERS! Tart is up, lady! You do your thang!