LICC - Britney Cheered

Britney Cheered? - Mark Greene considers the rise and fall of the most googled girl in the world

Britney is the most googled girl in the world. In fact, she is the most googled topic in the world - with more hits than anyone or anything else in 2003. And she's in the top 10 not just in Western nations but in a whole host of other countries. It would be easy to assume that what drives this interest is merely 'the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh' but that would be to overlook her enormous appeal - at least until recently to girls of 6 and over - and not incidentally her considerable talent. For Britney is far more than an American Atomic Kitten or Sugababe - she has a strong voice able to cross over a number of styles, outstanding diction, and superior phrasing. Furthermore, it is very hard to think of any artist, apart from Michael Jackson, who comes close to matching her ability to dance or indeed her ability to move on stage. She has also sold some 40 million records.

Britney was after all the Queen of Pop, the precocious teen star of the 90s who was able to communicate not only with those older than herself but to people her own age. A sixteen year-old didn't have to look to a 30 year old Madonna to find a singer to connect with because there was Britney who was sexually alluring but also remained a virgin for quite a lot longer than the average girl … though not as long apparently as her publicity suggested. Nevertheless, little girls could admire the style, big girls could admire the get up and go, boys could dream, and parents could approve, whilst older men apparently leered. Britney's appeal, like beauty, was in the eye of the beholder.

Still, this doesn't fully explain why she's the undisputed queen of cyberhits - there are plenty of other beautiful celebrity girls to ogle. Is it perhaps that she is so quintessentially an American girl and that the interest in her reflects a yearning for the fruits of the American dream? In the early days, much of her material tracked with her own rites of passage - 'not a girl, not yet a woman', as the song went, and if she herself wasn't sitting in a classroom in a uniform, most of her peers were, so the famous school corridor dance video found a connection in her age group's every day reality. Similarly, her much maligned but actually rather convincing film Crossroads traced her growing independence from her father and her decision to lose her virginity to a considerate, somewhat older boy. Alas.
Even then, however, it was clear that the battle for the portrayal of her body would be won by those who wanted to turn her into more than a pretty girl who could dance into a sexual tigress who could cavort. When my kids innocently played the video that accompanied the 'I love Rock 'n Roll' single, they all instinctively knew, at 6, 8 and 10, that this material was not meant for them. Britney lost some fans. Me included.

Now, Britney has grown up, or at least thrown off the remaining shackles of her wholesome growing up girl image. Her music has shifted from pop to a grittier, clipped R & B, her lyrics are all too sexually knowing and explicit and her videos have to be shown after the watershed. Of course, she had to develop a repertoire that reflected her transition into adulthood but there is no particular reason why it had to be so unoriginally prurient. Popular culture critics call this process 're-inventing yourself' - a phrase I first heard in relation to Madonna about whom it reflected an inaccurate understanding of the consistency of her approach to art and life - Madonna was growing and evolving. In Britney's case the 're-invention' looks more like a distinctly unoriginal desperation of soul as well as artistic imagination. Alongside that, her personal life looks a mess. Her quickie Las Vegas marriage and rapid annulment seems to express a lostness that ought to make our hearts break. Britney, the star, it seems to me, is destined to fade. Lets hope Britney the person can find her sparkle.

Mark Greene