Britney Spears: Toxic? Indeed!

Britney Spears, Toxic Digital Beauty and Kids on Diets...

      ...That seems to be what's on everyone's mind when it comes to magazine covers. Open up any big name magazine at your nearest newsstand and find a half-naked woman lying atop some man dressed to the nines in Armani pinstripes--scotch in one hand; cigar in the other. Flip over a few pages and see pictures of a twenty-one year old pop icon, naked but for a pair of skimpy panties and a few beaded necklaces. The media world has done a swift one-eighty degree spin to something that can be described as crass, crude and overtly sexual. A bikini-clad model perched on a shiny, red sports car, licking a monkey wrench, has become as normal as candles on a birthday cake.

In the infamous November 2003 Esquire Magazine interview and photoshoot, Britney Spears talked with savvy journalist Chuck Klosterman. Klosterman writes:

Interviewing Britney Spears is like deposing Bill Clinton: Regardless of the evidence, she does not waver.
"Why do you dress so provocatively?" I ask. She says she doesn't dress provocatively.
"But look what you're wearing right now," I say, while looking at three inches of her inner thigh, her entire abdomen, and enough cleavage to choke a musk ox.
"This is just a skirt and a top," she responds.

It is not that Britney Spears denies that she is a sexual icon, or that she disputes that American men are fascinated with the concept of the wet-hot virgin, or that she feels her success says nothing about what our society fantasizes about. She doesn't disagree with any of that stuff, because she swears she has never even thought about it. Not even once.

"That's just a weird question," she says. "I don't even want to think about that. That's strange, and I don't think about things like that. Why should I? I don't have to deal with those people. I'm concerned with the kids out there. I'm concerned with the next generation of people. I'm not worried about some guy who's a perv and wants to meet a freaking virgin."

And suddenly, something becomes painfully clear: Either Britney Spears is the least self-aware person I've ever met, or she's way, way savvier than any of us realize.

Or maybe both.

Britney Spears is but one of a new breed of pop tarts and pre-teen idols--gyrating, sashaying (and singing) in revealing, low-cut clothing and getting paid for it. The flip-side to this is the millions of very young, easily-influenced girls buying her albums, playing with their Britney Spears dolls, poring over her photos and mimicking her dance moves. These girls are growing up idolizing superstar Britney Spears and they assume that they should look, act and dress every bit as Britney's image. But what kind of example is she setting for her young fans?

Children are becoming accustomed to blatant displays of sexuality - and who can blame them, as the world has accepted this as the norm. What's more? Some parents approve her as a role model for their young children. In some ways, she has almost become a replacement for parenting. Eleven year-olds can gyrate better than I can!

Top personal branding consultant Peter Montoya said: "She has been so well marketed that the question of her talent is really a non-issue. Like Madonna 20 years ago, Britney Spears is having a major impact on American culture, influencing the way teen-age girls dress, act and think — especially with regards to sex."

According to Britney, she's "concerned with the kids out there"; but as to how she dresses, her sexually-charged music videos and her over-sexualized image in general, she "[doesn't] even want to think about that." Therein lies the dilemma.

There is a fundamental issue that is steadily surfacing. Media has brainwashed society to value outward appearances over other qualities such as intelligence and personality. In fact, the individual's intelligence, character, moral worth--or lack thereof--plays not the slightest role in whether they should be (or are) made into a noteworthy icon. The media only considers the amount of skin one is willing to bare; and the more the better. To them, a person has no value unless she can be made to appear visually provocative.

"As a child, I don't remember seeing scantly clad women on the covers of magazines as excessively as today. And I feel it's negative for young boys to grow up thinking that that's the standard of beauty. The long-term repercussions are not good at all." - Nelly Furtado in Rolling Stone magazine

It is through a person's outward appearance that people now judge her worth, attractiveness and potential. As long as you can smile at the cameras, are willing to show more skin than the next person, and fit the media's mold, no questions asked. In almost all cases, a person's achievements and intelligence are almost invisible to the public eye. Being smart is never a requirement. If anything, too much brain can hinder a career--for fear of making everyone else in the industry look bad or speaking from the mind, or heart, rather than from a publicist's script. The values that should be used to measure an individual's distinction are instead cast aside. To be blunt, the media has formed an army of Stepford Wives, with hardly any room for the diversity that characterizes the real world.

We, the audience of mass media, are rapidly absorbing this warped projection--and its aggressive emphasis on appearance. The pressure to be thin, tanned and Barbie-esque is the message sent--and received. Loud and clear.

We all know that pop-stars, supermodels and actresses adorn magazine covers. They are revered for their 'natural' beauty--their look. What is not shown on these covers are the many hours of effort that go into achieving their flawlessness. In fact, their beauty isn't natural at all! It's manufactured by an army of makeup and lighting experts, stylists, photo editors, and often surgeons. Go behind the scenes and beauty amounts to highly controlled lighting, perfect positioning, stylists who find the perfectly flattering designer outfit and then stuff, tape and pin it, and make-up--lots of make-up.

Once the photos have been shot and developed, they are then digitally enhanced. Blemishes, scars, wrinkles, discolorations are all erased. It doesn't end there. It is also during this process that breasts are lifted and enlarged. Skin is enhanced with a glow, cheeks are blushed, stomach muscles are added and fat is cropped out--anything is possible. And this is the norm. This is done not only on every magazine cover, but every printed page, every billboard or advertisement, even every music video and movie star film close-up (yes, they do all this to film as well).

But is this what people are asking for? What drives this? Perhaps Maxim magazine, the kings of heavily airbrushed models, said it best, while describing themselves in a recent press release: "The secret to [Maxim magazine's] popularity? Pictures of scantily clad models. A hefty dose of bathroom humor... In short: amusing drivel that's heavy on silliness, service, and attitude, light (or, perhaps more accurately, 'lite') on everything else."

Objectification of women has never been as blatant as in Maxim, FHM, and Stuff magazines. Women are billed alongside Sex, Toys, Gadgets, Cars and Sports for the entertainment of men. This marketing objectifies women and reduces them to nothing more than a gadget to play with and discard at whim. Half-naked women in come-hither positions pasted on the front covers of these magazines signals a green light to society. The message these magazines are selling is that it's okay to view women as [willing] sexual objects.

Not only men's magazines are guilty. Another culprit is a well-known women's magazine: Cosmopolitan. Famous for its sexual content and entertaining tidbits for women about men, sex and fashion, Cosmo's weakness is exactly the same as Maxim's--objectification. The irony is that Cosmopolitan also treats women, not men, as sex objects. Sure, there are a few pictures with nearly nude men, but at the same time (and in the same photos) there's always plenty of naked female flesh. Open a Maxim and find a nearly nude woman (or, more likely, three nearly nude women) draped over a fully-dressed man. See the imbalance?

Cosmopolitan, claims that it's promoting women's empowerment. But what they are actually doing is, in some ways, far worse than the men's publications. Women and girls seeing themselves portrayed as sexual objects--and nothing more--is a betrayal of their trust in reading something supposedly written by women for women. Women turn to Cosmopolitan to feel better about themselves, but the odds are they'll end up feeling much worse.

In Cosmo, perfectly proportioned glamazons in itsy-bitsy bikinis get all the guys. Women feel obliged to accept this notion and are taught ever so subtly that they aren't good enough. Women and teenagers can, and will, derive the same ideas from either genre of magazine--the men's version just happens to be a bit more obvious and raw.

"[Britney Spears] just about bares it all for the September issue of British Elle, wearing nothing but the shortest shorts imaginable, unless you also count the jewels in her pierced belly button. Inside the pages [of Elle], Britney's backside is revealed by photographer Mark Abrahams. Spears sports a little angel tattoo on her lower back and, as beautiful as Britney looks in the spread, Elle admitted the photos were retouched. This not uncommon for magazines, what is uncommon is that the publication is not covering up that fact." - Access Hollywood reporting on Britney's topless photoshoot for British Elle.

The real Britney Spears looks quite different than her alter-ego in the media. (Britney Spears @ Palms Hotel, Vegas; First published in the SUN 4/5/03)

What people forget is that every image you see of a pop-star, model or actor has been manipulated to look absolutely and glamorously flawless--larger than life, untouchable. Once these images are hoisted onto a cover and stacked at newsstands, an ideal is born. Women turn page after page seeing images of statuesque, exotic glory--pressure increasing with every turn. Make no mistake; these images do affect society in powerful ways, though subtle.

Stories about girls as young as five and six feeling the need to diet are now somehow commonplace. If adult women are feeling the pressure, how badly are preteens--even kindergarteners--feeling it? In fact, Teen magazine this fall reported that 35 percent of U.S. girls 6 to 12 years old have been on at least one diet, and that among normal-weight girls 50 percent to 70 percent consider themselves overweight.

What message is worth sending out if children are going on diets? Children do not stop growing until much later in life, even way past puberty. Diets alter them wholly--their state of mind, their development, their self-confidence. This sort of social phenomenon creates serious, deep-rooted altercations that affect an individual to no end. Maybe 'Toxic' Britney Spears doesn't like to think about this stuff... but it's time we did!~

Read More: Obsessed with Thin: Has the Media Gone Too Far? (HILARY Magazine)

Great Links - Definitely Worth a Look!
(Bookmark this page, then copy & paste link into new browser window)

Photoshop retouching examples: (Check out what expert digital photo enhancement can do!)
http://www.newfaces.com/shop/digital-photo-enhancement.php

See a Maxim model airbrushed: (You'll never view Maxim the same way again!)
http://homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/digital/bikini/index.html -

Another example: (Before & after of a blonde model's face)
http://homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/digital/blonde/

Amazing makeup coverups: (See what pro makeup can do!)
http://www.flygirlphoto.com/beforeafters/rocelyn.htm

Article: "Digital Fakery" (Ottawa Citizen)
http://www.med.sc.edu:1081/digitalfakery.htm

Article: "Bringing Up Britney Spears" (Newsweek)
http://www.msnbc.com/news/984647.asp