Republished: Britney Spears and why it’s painful to be beautiful

I saw her on Thursday night.

A lot has been said in Australia about the quality of her performance, most of it centred around the fact that she doesn’t actually sing. To those people, I say, “who goes to a Britney Spears concert expecting her to sing?” We established 10 years ago that it wasn’t her forte. Back then I was pretty pissed off about it too (being a self-righteous teenager at the time - and one who sang at that), but these days she’s more a symbol than she is a singer. And her show is more a Circus-with-a-capital-C than a concert.

Even on that level, it had its failings, though. It was much like one of her albums, in that there were some incredible high points (multi-media, Perez Hilton, the first three songs and the last two or three), and a whole lot of filler in the middle. And she spent way too much time off stage. I paid [ridiculous amount of money] to see Britney Spears, not her dancers.

But five-song lulls mean time for thinking, and I spent most of it thinking about just how much the success of Britney Spears - and even her mental health - is measured and predicated on the way she looks. As I’ve written before: Britney with fat on her body is read as ”off the rails”; skinny, toned Britney means “she’s baaaaack” - as much so as the quality of her albums or songs.

She looked fantastic on Thursday night, absolutely beautiful. But looking at her made me feel sad, because it reminded me of how much work - and probably anguish - goes into keeping her looking like that.

Two and a half years ago, she shaved her head. Now her hair is long, blonde and half-way down her back, but you could see quite clearly where her real hair ended and the extensions began. Her body was perfectly proportioned and toned - but we’ve all seen enough photos to know that she doesn’t look like she did when she was 20 anymore without a lot of work. (And even then I recall reading that she did 1000 sit ups each day. And possibly had bulimia.)

Recently, I wrote a feature article about the lives of the ridiculously beautiful. One of the things that came out of it was that even for the prom queens of this world - the kind of women who get approached on the street by legitimate modelling agencies and put on their books - being “the beautiful girl” takes work.

And that even if you naturally possess all the qualities that make a woman considered beautiful by the majority of people, it’s still something you can turn up and down, even on and off, at will - through clothing, hairstyle, make up, high heels, etc. So much of what we think of as beautiful is really about performing femininity, regardless of your body shape or bone structure.

For the story, I spoke to Dr Meredith Jones, a researcher from UTS. She told me that contrary to the “ugly duckling” stereotype, conventionally attractive people were actually more likely to get cosmetic surgery than less attractive people. They knew the feeling that comes from being loved and appreciated from their looks, and were terrified of it going away. Or, you know, wanted to give that “love” a little boost. 

And so we see Britney Spears. A woman who has - I think, at least - all the gifts of conventional beauty, who gets shit lumped on her whenever she dares to gain five kilos, get a pimple or not blow dry her hair. And who gets showered with financial and emotional rewards whenever she follows the script.