Tuesday, October 30, 2007

For some reason I was surprised – even if it was only for a minute – that Britney’s new album “Blackout” (which graciously drops today – “drops” is such a good word) features her bouncing sexually on the knee of a Catholic priest.

Of course it does. Photos that sexualize icons of the church are the only profitably offensive thing she was missing in her galactic equation of relentless pop cultural nausea.

It would absolutely be going too far to say that Britney is a genius for outraging the Catholic Church in return for scandalous acclaim. Madonna was a genius for doing that and she also won there because she wasn’t ever out of her mind insane like Britney. Ultimately, shock horror tactics from Britney aren’t anything new, she’s really no better than Donald Trump or even Chris Crocker at this point.

Still, congratulations are in order to a small extent because she did inspire the following quote from the Catholic League:

"This is all the puzzle pieces coming together. This girl is crashing," said Bill Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League. "She's not even allowed to bring up her own kids because she's not responsible enough. Now we see she can't even entertain."

It’s funny how it’s possible to completely disagree with someone. Fuck you, Donohue. I’m entertained. If there’s one thing that’s completely clear about Britney it’s that no matter how freaked out she gets she’s not crashing and burning. Sure it’s inexplicable but Britney’s not crashing. Furthermore, what the fuck would a member of the Catholic League know about entertainment?

Britney’s ability to continue to operate as a completely unhinged person who can still top the charts with her particular manifestation of totally insincere, plastic pop schmaltz despite herself is a super freaking human feat. Sure, she’s got an army of people behind her but so what? She’s still there, doing it. She’s a walking metaphor for America which is a shitload more than anyone can say about the ludicrously inane Catholic Church.

Outraging the Catholic Church is actually one of the smartest, most strategic and definitely most coherent business moves Britney has made in recent memory. . It actually also indicates a surprising level of artistic maturity from Britney Spears – a girl who has consistently failed to show that she is likely to be capable of anything more than a 5th grade reading comprehension level and maybe 6th grade coloring in. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I would pay to be called a heretic by the Catholic Church. Sadly, I’m essentially irrelevant to them. If only I were an eager to learn eleven year old boy. Well, I kind of am… [source]

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