When I got up this morning and wandered into the lounge with my scary hair and cup of tea, the first international news greeting me from the BBC was not the Democrats rubbing the Republican’s noses in it across the United States. It was not the ongoing conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan either.
The most important piece of international news this morning was that Britney Spears had filed for divorce from her husband, Kevin Federline.
Has the world really sunk so low that the personal life of a celebrity is seen as more newsworthy than a war?
In the face of so many people who use Britney Spears as some kind of comedy celebrity punch bag, I find myself feeling sorry for her. She is perhaps the end result of a pushy-parent’s wildest dream coming true, and the finely honed product of the commercial music industry and media. Even her sidestep into parenthood - and the inevitable photos of a young mum looking tired and hassled - has been milked by the machine surrounding her.
Fallibility is human, fallibility is also seen as endearing, and that has a value. Fallibility can be sold.
The same machine that launched Britney Spears into the limelight now has it’s magnifying glass aimed at her, with scalpel at the ready to pick her back apart. While watching the beginnings of this on television this morning, I felt sorry for her. Thoughts of Marilyn Monroe came to mind - of history repeating itself. Of the media that created a star deciding that more money could now be made out of destroying it - and if even more money can be made in the future from reconstructing it, then so be it.
In the middle of all the mayhem sits a very lonely girl surrounded by very few people she can trust who’s marriage has fallen apart. Her house is surrounded by photographers and television news crews.