The Woman In Me-Britney Spears

Biographies are my go-to decompression reads after I complete rather arduous books. They most always are simple auto-pilot page-turners that do not require much attention while also providing simple entertainment and insight to previously shrouded aspects of people we all thought we knew based upon how we saw them on television, sports, or whatever platform famous people use to become famous.

Last year, my go-to after Atlas Shrugged was Billy Crystal's "Still Foolin' Em'". A mundane Yankee gush-fest interspersed with boomer moralizing and a recollection of his rise to fame. It was a pass, but, by and large, it served its purpose: Easy reading with a few "Huh? That's interesting." parts.

Much like Billy Crystal, I was only mildly interested in Britney Spears. If anything, I was a bigger fan of Billy Crystal than I was Britney. That's not to say she is a poor artist at all. But during her heyday, I was steadily rocking anything affiliated with the Juggalo family tree of Insane Clown Posse, which didn't leave much room for rotation of Toxic, Hit Me Baby One More Time, or Stronger.

Britney Spears' meteoric rise crescendoed to its apex during my High School years. Like the rest of America, I watched her on television as she grew from a subtly naughty schoolgirl doing dance routines in hallways to spit-swapping with Madonna at the MTV Music Video Awards. I suppose comparing her to Taylor Swift and her current domination with fame and her relationship with Travis Kelce would be an apropos comparison to Britney's run and her relationship to Justin Timberlake.

Pop music has never really been my thing. Especially during the late 90s/early 00s when I cultivated such an obstinate attitude towards boycotting any artist that "sold out" and went on TRL. A loyalty that stuck with my musical tastes for the better part of two decades. Nowadays I have relinquished the shackles on my musical palate and allow my ears to roam as they please, landing—lately—on synth-heavy dark-wave.

So, having a haphazard interest in Britney Spears and her career is about the best way to describe my level of intrigue when it came to "The Woman In Me". Nevertheless, her career—and the period where it resided at the peak of the industry—happened during a time that I remember very well, and I needed a good decompress after having read "Atheism: A Case Against God".

*Also, I had heard some rumblings in the press about how Justin Timberlake—an artist for whom I have never cared for—was outed as the scuzbucket douchebag abortion inducer I always suspected him of being, and that was reason enough to merit a read.*

About halfway through though it became apparent that Justin Timberlake was only a mild blip on the radar of this demented odyssey of celebrity exploitation. Once I got into the thick of the pages—admittedly— I found myself unable to put this book down, and finished it in a day and a half. Not since Yeonmi Park's "In Order To Live" has a book taken me by such complete surprise, and I don't believe that I uttered "You've got to be fuckin' kidding me!" more times than I had while reading Britney's biography.

In Yeonmi Parks' book, the hideous shock lay within the details of inhumane conditions imposed by authoritarian devils—and how such a thing persisted to exist in modern society. With The Woman In Me, the shock is in the fact that what Britney endured, happened here in America, and not in an antiquated past—or in some third-world country either.

At times, this read more like smuggled journal entries from within the confines of a sadistic Gulag than it did your traditional biography.

If I were to refer to the members of her family—her mother and father specifically—as Nazi prison guards, that would be a compliment in retrospect—as they weren't that nice.

Before reading this book, I had no clue what a conservatorship was, but now that I do, I am appalled that such primitive parameters still exist and that its parasitic arms were able to suffocate Britney Spears's—a fully functional adult woman, mind you—personal life to the level that it did.

I may butcher this, but for those who are not privy, a conservatorship is a legal step—generally enacted by one's family—to control a person's amalgamated estate when it is deemed that they no longer possess the mental capacity to control the estate themselves.

In Britney's case, what had happened was that her success had wildly eclipsed anything that either of her whack-job parents had done, and out of seething jealousy, they concocted a scheme to convince compromised entertainment bureaucrats and judges that she was crazy. Together, they made fantasy become reality, and her father managed to wrestle control of everything about Britney's career out from underneath her and was then put into the position of playing puppet master to his own daughter. Every dime she made was his. Every meal was at his discretion. Her phone, social media accounts, media appearances, stage shows, child custody. Nothing happened without Jamie's (her father) OK. As a means of supporting her during this trying time, he had her put on lithium and would constantly tell her that she was fat and worthless.

It is sickening to even type up that summary and, by comparison, makes the whole hillbilly Tiger King saga look like mincemeat.

Dysfunctional families create waves that span generations. I get it. Britney even alludes to this in the book. Her granddaddy was a mean old bastard. One that pushed his children beyond acceptable levels of unachievable perfection on a daily basis. He drove one of three wives to commit suicide with a shotgun on her son's grave plot and sent another to the mental ward. Abuse reverberates beyond the grave and can impact lives more than an abusive parent may ever realize. And, shamefully, that seems to be the case with Britney and her upbringing. At least Britney was honest and mature enough to realize this.

But what she had to endure was jaw-dropping.

It was unfathomable to read certain portions, as Britney described how her ungrateful family road her like a prize-winning thoroughbred whose presence was only as good as the money she plodded for them. They went on vacation in beach houses she bought for them, went shopping on her dime, wrote scathing books about her, rode everything that she worked for to only satisfy their ends and whenever she attempted to reach out and reestablish a connection, they ignored her. Once she summoned the courage to speak up about it, like a bad puppy sent outside to sleep in a leaky doghouse, they locked her up in a mental institution.

Needless to say the inclusion of any mention of either Kevin Federline or Justin Timberlake and their selfish maneuvers in her story is basically superfluous. Both are one in the same as far as I'm concerned and fit the bill of this story. But by comparison to her immediate family, they were perfect angels.

I always suspected the sob stories of children who were pimped out by greedy parents to be particularly heinous, but until I read one like this in its entirety, I had no clue of the level of depravity these horrible people can sink to. Michael Jackson, Macaulay Culkin, Elvis Presley, Taylor Momsen, Gary Coleman, Judy Garland, Aaron Carter…every case makes sense. These kids, who aren't even through full puberty, become the vehicular mediums of their parents' unfulfilled personal dreams. Once these dreams become manifested in reality, the resentment begins, and, spitefully, the child stars and their success are bled dry of every nickel and penny. Left only to turn to substance abuse and strange habits to make up for parental nourishment that never existed to begin with.

This one caught me by complete surprise and made me think twice about judging a lot of the current celebrities ensconced with glitz, glamour, and gold. Underneath those who bask in the hollow acclaim from money-hungry frauds, who pose endlessly for flashbulbs and paint a thin veneer of flawless make-up above auto-ma-ton smiles, there are real people. But, then again, who is to say what is real and what is fake? Who knows what wide range of emotions they go through despite the cash flow and power at their behest. Maybe they are as happy as they seem. Maybe they are miserable. Maybe we'll never know.

None of it is real anyway.

Grade: A-

Verdict: Read