Britney and the Conceiveably Lost Cause

So, I just watched the Britney performance mess from last night.

I’m not really disgusted, per se… I actually feel bad for her to some extent.

Now, I realize that she is, for the most part, unworthy of any sympathy. She is an adult who has made poor choices – she’s always out partying when she should be caring for her kids or rehearsing, she essentially sabotages her own career at every turn, etc. I get all that, and you all know my feelings on it.

BUT.

Having been/ being a performer myself, it made me sad watching Brit because, above all, the most tangible element of her performance was embarrassment. She looked dead out there from moment one. It’s like she didn’t want to be out there – she did it because she was told the comeback thing was the right thing to do right now… and while I’m sure she realized she had something to prove, I think she just didn’t have it in her. She wanted to believe she did, but she didn’t… and it showed.

She knew her steps, but was clearly just going through the motions. That’s how you perform something in a rehearsal just to make sure you have your stage directions – even a legit rehearsal would have more energy and excitement than she showed at any point in that painful few minutes.

This reinforces for me something I thought all along: When you’re a performer, and you truly love what you do, you will come through in the clutch because your love for what you do will shine through. It should emanate from you – it should wow the audience by way of its sheer power, no matter how out of shape you might be. I’ve always thought Brit was someone who performed because that’s what she was told to do from when she was little. That she did dance competitions and whatever not because she really loved it, but because it’s what she knew. (I knew a LOT of girls like this growing up in theater and dance.) That was all confirmed for me in last night’s number.

So, in short, I feel bad because she had no business being on that stage and she probably felt like she had to be up there.

Furthermore, I feel bad because in the big picture, I think Brit’s suffering the backlash of growing up too fast in the public eye. Do I blame the media? Paparazzi? No, no, no. I blame mom and dad. I blame them because when it’s all said and done this girl didn’t have a real childhood. I’m convinced that’s why she’s partying like crazy now (and not grasping the responsibility of being a parent). That’s why she acts like a petulant child… because on some level, she IS a petulant child.

Is all blame removed from Miss Spears? No – you grow up, you need to adapt. We all go through growing pains of some sort or another… and yes, hers are just scrutinized and inflated because she’s in the public eye… but like it or not, she birthed those two kids and she now has a responsibility to do right by them.

Letting K-Fed look like the hero/ better parent is NOT the answer here.

So, end point is this: Much as she’s never been my favorite, nobody like to see anyone fail. (Except Paris Hilton… but that’s a different story.) I hope Brit gets the help she needs and reassesses. I hope the enablers in her life back off. I hope she grows up and learns from all this.

And I hope that, if she continues to push this comeback, she gets a better costumer… because that bikini was SO not what she needed to rock at this point.