Venting the Spleen

In the free train paper on Monday there was a picture of Britney Spears, in fishnets, stiletto boots and a spangly knickers+bra combo. She was squatting over a male dancer who looked slightly harassed. Her back was arched and her mouth was a little way open, in an overtly sexual way, a genuine cum face which makes one feel dirty just to look upon it. The blurb underneath said that her comeback at the MTV music awards was panned by critics*, it went on to say that witnesses said she looked overweight and was not miming her lyrics properly. My friend and I were reading the same newspaper, wincing over the horrendous decline of the micky mouse star that was. She said "oooh thats not nice!" and I said "yeah, she's too fat". Then there was this little silence and miss p said "she's not too fat.."
Uh Oh...this is where my ridiculous body standards and those of normal happy people collide. Miss p is a lovely girl, with big bunny rabbit eyes and something else behind them - is it wisdom? Something like it anyway. Something that betokens a down-to-earth pleasantly cultivated sensibility. A genuinely nice person, even when she exposes a nasty sentiment like jealousy she does it in such charming way you'd never think less of her for it. Of course, she's right, the real issue isn't simply that she's large by MTV standards, it is that she's a broken ex-pop star that can't seem to handle growing up. Her desperate slutting about on MTV is the issue, not that she's gained a few pounds. But to me, desperate failure and a little bit of fat are inseparable. I must seem awfully morose and spiteful to her, despite all my attempts to edit my thoughts before they spill out of me and into those little silences.


*Just what kind of critics do you get at the MTV awards?