Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Britney Spears appeared in the banal sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” last night as medical receptionist and she really wasn’t that bad. She comes across as slightly subtle and hilarious in ways that aren’t usually seen in American half hour sitcoms not to mention that this is probably a genius way to fix her image.

Usually, everything in sitcoms is so calculated and formula that every line is written to a certain formula and there really is very little room for nuance and subtlety. With Britney, in some of the scenes you can tell she could barely figure out how to say what they’d given her with a basic sense of realism but in others her disconnect from the script and fully knowing what to do with the material meant that she was random and cute. Such a lucky break.

The smart thing about this is that it allows her to play an unhinged, whacky character that acknowledges her recent unhinged behavior but it does it in the context of a highly controlled and marketed product. It’s really the perfect way to rehabilitate her image. In many ways it’s a nod to both her prior career and her more recent meltdown all at once.

Good on Britney Spears for getting out there and trying something new though. Fraps and albuterol spray for weight loss have got to be uninspiring at this point let alone potentially horrendous for her health. She’s looking quite neat and clean too and that’s a positive thing.

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