Brittany's latest fiasco and what it means?

I am afraid I don't know much about popular culture but somehow I have heard all about Brittany Spear's humiliation at the MTV awards. I even tried to watch the video but clicked it off after 3 seconds. I have seen car wrecks once or thrice before, from the inside of the car, so didn't need to watch hers. But Rebeca Taister on Salon.com has an interesting take on it. Here's a bit of it:

Who can believe that there is anything more to say about Britney Spears at this point? But, alas, there is. Spears has come to represent something -- something important enough that it keeps rearing its head. As has been pointed out before, she embodies the disdain in which this culture holds its young women: the desire to sexualize and spoil them while young, and to degrade and punish them as they get older.

And this about another public humiliation:

I wrote about the jeering treatment of Lauren Caitlin Upton, the Miss Teen USA contestant so widely ridiculed on the Web for her inane answer to a question about why children could not identify the U.S. on a map. The next day, she posted comments on the Internet braying about how famous she now was and how all her critics were simply jealous of her. She seemed perfectly satisfied with her role as a voodoo doll of dumb blondness; as long as she's embodying someone's fantasy of laughable girliness then she's getting attention, and that's what seems to count.

Ms Upton, btw, is enrolling in our school next year. On the theory that name recognition is everything and negative publicity is still publicity, I think our chancellor must be pleased.

At least she won't have to take history.


but I fear for my nieces as they grow.