Britney at 2007 VMA (1 Viewer)

[Al.Anderson]

We wouldn't be making milions of dollars off our bodies -- it wasn't her talent that got her all that cash. And we also don't show up for work in lingerie.

Seriously though, she should have toned the outfit down. She still could have pulled off sexy; she's just not 18 any more.

 

[KevinGress]

I'd heard some gossip recently that reported that in the past she'd been approached by Playboy to do a spread for million(s?), which she rejected. Now, however, she desperate for cash and has been approaching Playboy.

 

[Malcolm R]

Would anyone pay to see her in Playboy when she's been flashing the world for free?

 

[mylan]

Well, I might seeing as how Playboy would airbrush all the blemishes. At least it would be classy and not some beaver shot of her exiting a limo half drunk. A.F.A. needing the money, I read where she makes something like $700,000 a month. If she's going broke, I have no pity.

 

[Hanson]

After being told about it from co-workers on Monday and reading about it on the gossip sites (I was too busy watching the Giants self-destruct in Dallas), I downloaded the performance and hyped it up to my wife. After putting our daughter to bed, we both nestled into the couch and waited to wallow in large pools of schadenfreude.

Or so we thought.

In the end, yeah, she stopped lip-synching at some point and was pretty listless, but I was expecting something along the lines of this:



Maybe my expectations were too high.

 

[Dave Mack]

ouch!

granted. Bad choice of outfit but I gotta say, I don't think she looked THAT bad. The media made it out as if Star Jones pre-bypass surgery was up there. Was she a bit out of shape? Yes. Could she have toned up? Yes. Actually to me she looked more bloated maybe from partying all week than actually out of shape. But was she FAT? Not at all.
I wonder how the women working in the media feel about all this body crticism of a woman who has had 2 children?

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Criticism of Spears is NOT criticism of women. The girl's JOB is her physical appearance (and her music, but that's NEVER been good). I once watched a special on Heidi Klum's workouts. Even post-kids, they were BRUTAL. But that is her livelihood. She knew it. She spent hours a day on it. It was her JOB.

Spears had a good body for a women with two kids. But most of those women have real jobs and real responsibilities that prevent them from looking ripped and fit. Spears does not. She compounded it by wearing an outfit that accentuated her physique, and dancing lazily (if at all). The overall impression is harsh. If your body is your job, and this is your comeback interview...what are you saying?

No sympathy. If she'd worn something else, she'd still be getting blasted for her performance.

Women should feel free to look however they want. Don't let criticism of Spears translate to real women.

 

[Colton]

Her fans want you to LEAVE HER ALONE!

 

[ChristopherG]

that was painfully disturbing to watch...

 

[Colton]

Did it make you cry?

 

[mylan]

Yeah and I clicked out of it after about 1:20!! Good God, woman get a life! Wait...we're sitting here talking about it, so maybe we should get a li...nahh.

 

[DaveF]

You know, I'd gladly suck that bad on TV for half what Britney charges! How do I negotiate the contract?

 

[Colton]

Ummm ... that was a guy.

 

[Dave Mack]

I always thought her job was just being kind of a mediocre singer who could dance a bit. Her "body is her job"...?!?!?
Not according to amazon or anyplace that sells her records. She is a singer. And since most of the people who buy her records are teen and early 20-something girls, do you think they really care if she doesn't have a 6 pack anymore? So in a way, I don't see how this affects her "job". Unless horny middle aged men bought her records and are actually now turned off by this performance. Somehow I don't think so.

I admit it's a bad choice of outfit and she did indeed give a lazy, dull performance but IMHO people are making WAY too big a deal over her "weight". She has WAY bigger demons than that.

And once again if this had been the 60's, she would have been considered "skinny" in comparison to most of the go go dancing girls out there. Who decided that women have to look like anorexic liitle boys with big fake boobs to look "feminine" anyways...?

 

[WillG]

I don't know Dave. If you ask me, her appearance and the fact that her first video was her as a teen writhing around in a schoolgirl uniform while singing "Hit Me Baby One More Time!" that sold those records. That was her in. I can't imagine she would have had the success that she has had if she was just another "average" looking girl.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Tough sell, Dave. Tough sell.

Don't tell me all you musicians need to stick up for each other!

 

[Dave Mack]

Hey, I said "mediocre" singer...!



Interesting that the media backlash against the media feeding frenzy has started...


http://news.aol.com/entertainment/mu...11064009990001


"Britney's Body Gets Brunt of Insults
By JOCELYN NOVECK,AP
Posted: 2007-09-11 17:12:25
Filed Under: Britney Spears, Music News
NEW YORK (Sept. 11) - The consensus is clear: Britney Spears performed like she was sloshing blindfolded through mud at MTV's Video Music Awards. No one disputes that the troubled pop princess royally mangled her much-heralded comeback. But what about the nastiest comments of all - those about her body? "Lard and Clear," read Monday's headline in the New York Post. "The bulging belly she was flaunting was SO not hot," wrote E! Online. And so on.


Was it fair? Did Spears, lest we forget a mother of two, deserve to be held up against the standard of her once fantastically toned abs, sculpted by sessions of 1,000 tummy crunches? Or was she asking for it by choosing that unforgiving black-sequined bikini?

More profoundly, in an age where skinny models and skeletal actresses are under scrutiny for the message they're sending young girls, what does it say that we're excoriating a young woman for a little thickness in her middle?

Certainly people were curious to see her. The show drew 7.1 million viewers Sunday, up 23 percent over last year's VMAs, and was the highest-rated cable program of the year among people aged 12 to 34, according to Nielsen Media Research.

On the morning after what the VH1 channel called Spears' "already historic" performance, the blogosphere was buzzing with opinions. For every "fat" comment there was an impassioned retort. "Give her a break," wrote one blogger on Aboutthink.com. "The girl's had two kids - I hope I'm a size 10 after having kids!"

"OK, she isn't fat," wrote another. "But she isn't fit enough to be wearing (or not wearing) what she is."



For many observers, the issue was not so much the body, but the body in THAT outfit.

"In that ensemble, you just can't have an ounce of anything extra," said Janice Min, editor of the celebrity magazine US Weekly. "Many women wouldn't eat for days if they were wearing that."

"Did she look better than 99 percent of women? Yes," added Min. "But compared to her earlier form, she probably didn't look as good."

Besides, said Min, "Britney Spears has always been about the whole package. It's never been 100 percent about the talent. Is it sexist? Probably, but she's built a career on an image of sexiness."

Talk of Spears' physique comes amid an increasingly critical focus on overly skinny actresses in Hollywood, who've largely replaced supermodels as the world's fashion plates. It's hard to pick up a celebrity magazine without a critical photo of, say, Angelina Jolie's birdlike arms. And curvy actresses are getting positive attention, from Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson of "Dreamgirls" to Golden Globe-winner America Ferrara of TV's "Ugly Betty."

In the fashion industry, there's been an effort to promote healthier-looking models. "Girls aren't looking as skinny this season as they did," said Suze Yalof Scwhartz, executive editor-at-large for Glamour Magazine. "There's food backstage. They're looking sexier." At Glamour, she noted, a model won't be featured "if she shows too much clavicle."

The nastier headlines about Spears are uncalled for, Schwartz said, but at the same time, "when you walk around the stage in a black bikini in front of millions of viewers, people are going to notice." She added that though Spears doesn't have the perfect body she once did, "Most women would die for the body she has now."

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

When I first read the thread of the title I thought it said BS at "VMI". What a mental picture that produced for me.

 

[Ken Chui]

I disagree. Attached is a postcard of a 1960s pin-up model:



She is not a waif, but rather, height- and weight-proportionate (which Britney isn't). The woman rendered on the postcard has an hourglass figure; Britney does not (as her hips and waist dimensions are fairly close to each other). If Britney didn't have the 'motherhood' excuse to fall back on, would you still consider her current figure ideal?

 

[RobertR]

She who lives by the bod, dies by the bod.