Some Thoughts on Britney and Paris as Socio-Cultural Bellwethers.
Two unrelated points that I think mean something but am unsure exactly what.
1) I have heard in the last 3 days, Britney Spears single Toxic three times, once at a strip club and twice at a popular gay dance bar–I haven’t heard it on the radio for months. Between this, the sniping about class the tabs are doing, and her general melt down/wedding fiasco I think that she has finally moved from a pop phenom to a camp classic–which is not a bad thing, the music is better and the self awareness more entertaining. I am just wondering about what strip club and gay dance music is a bellwether for. (another thought, what sort of ironic deconstruction is being done if a black woman took her clothes off to Jay Z’s 99 problems–any?)
2) Paris Hilton’s new album (everyone needs a new album, Lindsay Lohan has one you know–and Hilary Duff’s new movie is being sold by a single that was on the air a month ago.) is called Paris is Burning–after the 80s drag classic or as an awareness of the public reactions to her act. The Lower East Side Drag Queens made a mockery of taste and money, and so is Hilton–the only exception being that she has it and they didn’t.
(What do these two things have in common, What do these two things have apart?)