By Meghan Vicks
Test this hypothesis with something other than reason and more like intuition: we are all Britney Spears.
Self is split into midriff/truth-b(e)arer Britney vs. Hollywood Britney. Hollywood Britney can’t see herself despite the ubiquity of her image, whereas midriff/truth-b(e)arer Britney can’t convey her truth no matter how needed it is or how mesmerizing her abs are.
Britney mise en abyme; self in the abyss; self made manifest in a world of fun-house mirrors.
Struggling to see herself in her own reflection (or a reflection of a reflection ad infinitum) – which, of course, is the only way to self-knowledge, but this way is rejected because we require knowledge more real than a reflection. Isolation and loneliness, whether surrounded by people or not. Blind to the answer that is singing right in front of you, because it’s too fucking simple or clichéd, or maybe because there is no answer. After all, midriff/truth-b(e)arer Britney offers no answers, even though she sees something no one else does.
ENNUI pronounced “EN-YOO-EYE.”[1]
Every material need is met, and yet it amounts to nothing more than the palatial chicken coop[2](you don’t just live in order not to get wet, right?). Eternal longing for something that modern society cannot provide, and has no idea how to provide, and has no idea how to even articulate or conceptualize.
Self-fulfilling prophecy. Poor Britney Spears. We’re all such a spoiled brats (or maybe I should just speak for myself).
By the way: all life takes place on a stage – a story about a girl named Lucky, told by an idiot (who is puppeteered by her father or some other man behind the curtain), full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing.[3]
[1] Also reminds me of Sylvia Plath’s marginaliain her copy of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: “Plath underlined Daisy’s famous prediction for her daughter: ‘And I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool’ (21). Beside the following paragraph containing Daisy’s line ‘I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything,’ Plath wrote ‘L’Ennui.’” Britney Spears as the world’s “beautiful little fool.” Britney Spears doomed to a life of ennui.
[2] A reference to Dostoevsky’s Underground Man, the narrator of Notes from Underground, and still one of the best readers of our contemporary condition.
[3] Adapted from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Act V, scene 5:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
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