This is the first draft of a paper for my pop-culture class. Read it and weep.
Britney Spears’ shaved head at face value only seemed culturally relevant because it was shocking, but the significance of one individual’s breakdown quickly became the metaphor of one culture’s implosion: celebrity culture. Britney Spears’ shaved head is culturally significant, because prior when we saw any other “celebrity starlet” bareheaded it was a symbol of strength. Sinead O’Connor, Natalie Portman, Demi Moore, (we’ll ignore that it’s problematic that a woman has to have male attributes to appear strong). These women were revered and admired, artists or dedicated actresses in fulfilling their roles, going against the grain of convention, a woman’s bald head—a celebrity woman’s bald head—meant that she transcended beauty because she didn’t need something that is a paramount part of femininity’s essence—long locks—to appear beautiful.
When Britney Spears’ baldhead surfaced all over the Internet, in headlines, nightly news, it was apparent that she had suffered a psychotic episode—many came to her judgment, others plead in her defense. The cry of the “Princess of Pop” was heard by many, if not all, but what makes her breakdown important, is not because of her level of fame or exposure, it is because of how all of these things came into fruition.
Most of us aren’t born with a destiny, with our lives planned out in great detail from birth, but Britney’s was, she was always a means to an end. From the moment she was born, she was born a star, not because of fate, but because her mother, Lynn Spears, decided so. Britney Spears’ fame and fortune was a product, and much like any other product, it was discussed, planned, created, manufactured and sold, by a large group of “handlers,” and like any other product, a toaster has no say, when it is merely pieces of metal and plastic, in what it is to become.
Britney Spears, until the moment she decided to shave her head, was a subject, only acted upon and influenced, until she decided to take control of her appearance, (the most important aspect of celebrity “persona”). But this apparent act of autonomy was not one of strength or beauty, it was simply an identity crisis. Her nervous breakdown was evidence of a deeply flawed culture that prided itself on appearances from a great distance. But in this generation of overexposure (the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, gossip blogs, etc.) our closeness began to reveal too much. That the sweet, blond girl with the country accent on TV, was a depressed, medicated, lost, woman, who never had any choice in the matter. When Britney Spears shaved her head, she destroyed her image and the fourth wall. She shattered the discrepancy between the once godly, idealized exterior of celebrity life and that of reality. Natalie Portman’s shaved head represents that of shallow autonomy, Britney Spears’ of the truthful subject.