I [[heart]] Britney!

Yes, I know that Terri has shuffled off her mortal coil, with the pope trailing not far behind her, but what I want to write about is Britney. Yes, that Britney.

Britney Spears has posted on her Web site (my god, why haven’t I visited it before? It’s so pretty!) a bit of a tirade against the tabloids. Now, I know what you’re thinking, poor little celebrity girl whining about her fame. But let me put it this way, what semi-talented, kinda hot teenager offered the chance at mega fame wouldn’t leap for it? And what 23 year old, pressing up against adult consciousness and hounded by an insatiable press hell-bent on exposing her flaws, wouldn’t like kinda you know regret it?

As an unabashed Us Weekly reader, I have relished Ms. Spears’ big fuck you to the tyranny of body image, male gaze, and celebrity expectations that make up the surreal banality of her existence. I speak of the shredded jeans, the misspelled tattoos, the Cheetos, the beer gut, the bare feet in the gas station bathroom, the doomed marriage to a visible cretin. Fuck yeah, Brit! Rub your feet in slimy trucker feces! Screw convention, beauty, and charm! Hang with that wigga twit Kevin if he makes you happy.

But, like Tracey Gold, she cannot escape the media’s desperately watchful eye. And now that the beer and pot and pizza has caught up with her (Oh how we sympathize, Brit; most women are taken aback by how quickly our metabolism slows in our mid-20s!), the tabloids have birthed an ugly brood of pregnancy rumors. Is she fat or that? And Britney is right to demand why they aren’t dry-humping Julia Roberts’ baby pictures and leaving her the hell alone?

Of course, that’s not what she writes on her Web site. Her post is, alas, somewhat ill-conceived and bafflingly raw. (Note to press agent: in the future, edit this shit.) But my god, three people read my somewhat ill-conceived and baffling raw writing when I was 23. Poor Brit has the world to reckon with. Well, she needn’t reckon with me.

Britney, you can run but you can’t hide, but if you can stand it, figure out who you are and be true to it. I, for one, will support you, bad hair and all.