Not to Make Too Much of It...

...but this whole Britney Spears press orgy is emblematic of our culture as a whole. We are consumers. The ultimate fate of the target of our consumption is of little to no concern of us; whether its our environment, the under-paid and over-worked producers of goods and services; or, as in this case, even our young.

This girl was paraded as a sexual object for men four times older than her before she had even built any personal identity, forget a sexual one. And because she made a lot of money (and perhaps in the view of some women, because she was a little too perfect), the minute she began living her life on her own flawed terms it became the right of every member of our society to subject her to whatever pejorative attack we saw fit.

Money is money, but it can't buy self-valuation, emotional well being, or the ability to construct relationships with others on terms other than manipulation. A lot of people are a lot more fucked up at twenty-five than she is, but they never dealt with carrying the expectations of being a cultural symbol. And so now that we have sucked everything we want out of her, and men across America can't imagine statutorily raping her; we are only too willing to kick her as hard as we need to to get her to the curb. It ain't right. We as Americans literally consume our young; and along with the rest of her family, we share the blame for whatever happens to her.

But it ain't news.