Does Britney Spears’ Vegas residency make her a “feminist role model for single working mothers everywhere”?
In a really long Matter magazine piece, Spears’ current Las Vegas residency is profiled and analyzed in relation to the pantheon of those megastars who came before her: think Elton John, Shania Twain and Celine Dion, all of whom fill 4,000-seat stadiums on a regular basis, attracting middle-aged Americans (and a surprising number of Canadians) to the desert city like flies.
Previously, Spears said she was looking for a gig that would allow her to perform while being present for her two sons, Sean Preston and Jayden James, and Vegas is just that. As a headliner at Planet Hollywood Casino, Spears is able to crank up her circus and then fly back home to California in time to tuck in her kids.
Writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner asserts that perhaps Spears had to go all the way to Sin City after a drug-addled, head-shaving, umbrella wielding meltdown to become a whole, responsible and boring adult again.
For her entire career, Britney has been a living, breathing Rorschach test not just to me but to anyone who regards her. She presents us with action and art, all for interpretation, maybe even fucking with us a little while she does it. And whatever we see in it, that tells us a lot about who we are, not who she is.
And while the former Disney kid isn’t boasting a Robert Downey Jr. level comeback — she’d need to level with or destroy Beyoncé to make that happen — Britney Jean is doing well for a semi-relevant pop star who used to permeate the media so effectively that I didn’t even have to Google the names of her sons to write this post. (Yes, that weirded me out too.)
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