Saving Ms. Spears

"You want to be a good example for kids out there and not do something stupid. Kids have low self-esteem and then peer pressures come and they go into a wrong crowd. That's when all the bad stuff starts happening."

What's left to say about Britney Spears? That opening quote came out of her 17-year-old mouth during a Rolling Stone interview in 1999. And since then, we've watched the pop singer go from coquettish cultural phenom to mesmerizing train wreck. We've seen her writhe around in a Catholic schoolgirl outfit, smooch Madonna and stumble through her underwear-clad "comeback performance" on MTV. We've read the breathless headlines about her marriages and divorces, her alleged struggles with drugs and apparent inability to stay fully clothed in public. Indeed, she has single-handedly kept scores of journalists and paparazzi gainfully employed for years.

"Britney Spears Reportedly Runs Red Light," read an honest-to-goodness Nov. 9, 2007 headline on mtv.com.

Given enough time and space, someone could (and probably will) write a thesis about what the career arc of Britney Spears says about modern-day America. It would be about how we as a culture treat women, success and celebrity. And it will determine whether Ms. Spears is more vixen or victim.

Exhibit No. 864 in that thesis would be Spears' new album, Blackout.

Fade to Nude
Blackout is an artistic comeback just at the point when many of Spears' critics wondered whether she could string together a coherent sentence, much less a CD. But once it landed on store shelves, music experts hailed the disc as a fun, danceable collection of grindhouse pop—and Blackout hit No. 2 on Billboard's album chart.

What it actually is, is PG-13-style sonic porn.

Blackout reeks of sexuality on nearly every track. "What I gotta do to get you to want my body?" Spears asks on "Get Naked (I Got a Plan)." "I just wanna take it off/I just wanna take it off." On "Perfect Lover" she pants, "Baby, I'm just hot for taking/Don't you want to see my body naked?"

Etcetera.

Album artwork, meanwhile, features Spears in various flimsy outfits, and one page appears to showcase her seducing a Catholic priest.

Not that this should surprise anyone. Spears has been pushing the proverbial envelope for so long that it's fallen off the proverbial desk and is now haphazardly floating down the proverbial elevator shaft. Stirring controversy through sex has been part of Spears' persona for as long as some of her youngest fans have been alive.

Of Sparkling Beginnings and Backhanded Slaps
Granted, when Spears popped on the scene, some convinced themselves she was an echo of an earlier, more innocent time. Jive Records marketed her as an all-American girl—a blond Baptist who, for good measure, was a Mousketeer! She was cool, charismatic and ... Christian: She talked about God. She said she was a virgin, and she insisted she would remain so until marriage. In an age when Marilyn Manson was still relevant and gangsta rap was all the rage, Spears' songs were buoyant, upbeat and—technically—clean.

But she—and/or her marketing machine—wanted it both ways. She quickly began striking sexy poses for magazine covers, and millions of boys began salivating over her. The video for her breakout hit "... Baby One More Time" featured Spears seductively dancing in that now-infamous Catholic schoolgirl getup. It was infectious, wildly controversial—and a soaring success.

At first, Spears tried to explain away her sexual image. "I'm a Christian," she told Teen People in 2000. "I go to church. But my mom taught us, 'Don't be ashamed of your body. It's a beautiful thing.'" The Church of England promptly called Spears a "great ambassador for virginity."

But her soon-to-be-obvious sexual posturing was only a marketing decision away. Walt Mueller, a well-known Christian cultural expert, heard from one of the architects of Spears' ascent during a recent youth marketing conference, and wrote about the talk on his Web site, cpyu.org. "Since kids are naturally in the process of growing up and breaking ties from mom and dad, they want their own music and their own stars," Mueller reported. "How did that work with Britney? She was initially shaped and marketed to be a darling of mothers of young girls. But as those young girls grew up, they didn't want to be listening to music that soothed mom's ears and worries. So, Britney started the process of going over the edge, over and over again."

Vibe columnist Karen R. Good put it this way in 2003: "Even if you can sing, there's no guarantee anybody will listen. But if you're willing to show you [sic] a--, rest assured, everyone will look."

Now, at 25, Spears is again begging people to look. But something's changed since 1999. The same people who bought her records eight years ago now read about her latest fender-bender and cackle with a kind of mean-spirited glee the Germans call schadenfreude. And it's become more than just piling on. It's a modern-day virtual stoning—with a willing victim lying in the dirt ... while plucking millions out of thin air.

"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," wrote salon.com's Rebecca Traister earlier this year. "Of course, she also represents a youthful feminine willingness—stupid or manipulated as it may be—to conform to the culture's every humiliating expectation of her."

A Hope and a Prayer
Still, there are some who don't want to see this pattern continue. It's easy—and appropriate—for Plugged In Online, for instance, to come down hard on a new sexually themed CD titled Blackout. But not on a divinely created human being named Britney.

Similarly, shortly before Blackout was released, a pack of Spears' self-described friends launched a MySpace page that encouraged people to boycott the album. It was for Spears' own good, these tough-love associates said. Plus, it would send a message to her record label and handlers that they had to stop cashing in on her damaged life.

The page has since been taken down, but msnbc.com reported that it read, in part, "Our message is simple: Don't buy her stuff until she's better. ... Sitting around and talking about how bad of a person, singer, mother—whatever your thoughts are—these things won't help change this very broken woman. Help Britney help herself by expressing your concern to those who are largely responsible for her success."

Christians can add one more layer to that. When you walk by a record store or surf on iTunes, say a quick, quiet prayer for Britney Spears. She needs it. We all do.