Whoa whoa whoa! Australia, hold up. Let’s tread carefully here… do we really want to induce another Britney Spears meltdown?
Because that’s what we’re skirting with this teacup tempest over the somewhat faded pop star’s decision to lip synch the bulk of each stop on her current concert tour.
Since kicking off the Australian leg of her 60-date comeback roadshow at Perth’s Burswood Dome last week, Spears has faced a page one Daily Telegraph hitpiece, reports of WA fans demanding refunds (a claim the venue denied in a statement) and the sort of media harassment usually reserved for Dennis Ferguson.
There are a few angles to this non-story, but the paramount question is just what do we stand to gain by pushing a recovering mental health patient, a fragile young mum by all accounts, that little bit closer to the edge?
Of course Spears’ miming ‘scandal’ is an obvious lure for the entertainment media, who rarely get to ride stories cast from the A Current Affair mould.
It’s got the lot – a wealthy villainess (a neglectful mum to boot!), ill-informed devotees tricked into shelling out to watch her mime and talk of the NSW government legislating a lip synch ‘disclaimer’ on to concert tickets.
The only catch is that it’s common knowledge Spears has mimed her vocals since the early days of her career… and that she’s been miming heavily on the current tour.
Any pop performer with questionable vocal gifts and 90 minutes of vigorous choreography to get through does it; Beyonce, Kylie Minogue and Madonna, three names out of a 10-gallon hat of mimers, have also been accused. It’s hardly a Milli Vanilli-scale disgrace.
And look at the demographic, the fans are getting what they paid for… pop shows of this size are almost always finely tuned entertainments that push all the right buttons and send folks homes on a high.
Watching Spears move her lips – and dance her ass off – amid an arena-scale spectacle of dancers, pyro and costumes likely adds up to ‘a great night’ out for those willing to put down $200 for the privilege.
Besides, this is a performer not long out of several rehab stints and two quite grotesquely publicised visits to the psychiatric ward.
It’s not Laurence Oliver doing Othello at the Old Vic in 1964 or The Cure doing Trilogy in Berlin… you can’t expect to see her at her peak.
This all makes the Spears situation something quite apart from the broader lip synching debate, which is a healthy discussion to have once she’s left the country.
But think of the custody battles, a messy divorce, repeated paparazzi humiliation… why are we so quick to set Spears up as the lip synching monster when she’s already a victim?
The cracks first appeared during her ill-advised 2005 reality show Britney & Kevin: Chaotic, which chronicled her courtship with Kevin Federline and bore the production values of a sexless sex tape.
You could spot her fragility (and Federline’s crude manipulation) a mile off. And we all know how that story ended.
It’s widely reported that her father Jamie now has unhealthy levels of control over her life and career. If you believe everything you read, he decides the tour schedule, monitors her phone and controls the money.
It’s a tough break for Spears: he’s an ex-boozer and we all know how tightly they hold the reins when given the chance.
But here’s hoping her world is as tightly run by her father as the media and gossip sites make out. Here’s hoping he keeps the lip synch headlines away from her. She doesn’t need the noise.
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