A Note to Young Ivy Leaguers: Britney Spears is not Superwoman

Sometimes, even at my elite top ten college, I cannot help but think I am adrift in a sea of morons. True intellectual discussion is seldom had in classrooms here; instead, the banal is discussed with such self-righteous overtones, with such indignation, that people convince themselves every word that is being said is the life-pulse of humanity. I would like to quote a much beloved professor on this: "pedantry is its own breathing hell." Though perhaps having one professor like her makes this college worth it, the idiocy of those around me sometimes makes me think I should have gone to state school.

In my Women's and Gender Studies class on Thursday, we somehow found ourselves in the middle of a two-hour discussion about how Britney Spears has made depression okay to talk about, and has thus liberated many women to speak about their illnesses; by being publically depressed, Britney Spears somehow made depression less taboo in the West. My initial reaction was none other than WTF?, but I kept my cool, and calmly stated that Britney Spears was probably bipolar and not depressive, and that I felt she had done nothing for people with genuine mental illness. Furthermore, I continued, it was not all that surprising that a musician should have a mental illness in the first place—that it seemed most artists tended to have something. I was then accused of trivializing mental illness, and my class continued, undeterred, in their discussion of the heroism of Britney Spears.

First of all, Britney Spears is not heroic; she's crazy. She did not come public about her struggle with mental illness is some respectable way; she shaved her head, ran around with her crotch hanging out, and was hospitalized. If anything, she was a joke. The media had a field day with her and her antics. Women, possibly, could have sympathized with Spears, empathized with Spears, but never in any stretch of imagination could they have felt liberated by Spears.

I find it revolting that in the Ivy League, every act of deviance is taken as a sign of revolution against the terrible Western social structures the people here imagine they are so oppressed by. "The other" is exalted, no matter what "the other" is. Drug addicts and committers of suicide are painted in the same heroic stroke as genuine innovators and revolutionaries. My classmates and professors fail to see that some of the people they are so praising have not worked to overthrow anything; they merely suffered.

It pisses me off, too, that here everything Western is demonized. Obviously, Western nations and cultures are very much to be blamed for some of the conditions that plague Third World nations now due to colonialism, but Hollywood movies are not necessarily a bad thing. Democracy is not necessarily a bad thing. And apple pie is just fucking delicious. We should be able to admit to ourselves that what works for countries like the United States and England might not work for other countries and peoples, while not completely debasing the cultures we live in—the very same cultures that have given us the liberties and freedoms we enjoy today. "The other" is not necessarily better. How would my classmates like it, for instance, if they lived in country where they were jailed for their political beliefs?

I certainly cannot stand the self-indulgent socialists that surround me, but I am happy enough to live in the United States, where we can have these stupid, trivial, inane debates about the importance of Britney Spears without fear of retribution. And my classmates should feel happy to live in a country that makes it illegal for me to beat the bloody hell out of them in a back alley.

God Bless America, You [All] Drive Me Crazy.



~Get Back in the Kitchen!