Britney For Smart People! Britney Spears Makes Cover Of The Atlantic

Via Gawker, we learn that the decline of Britney Spears is the subject of the highbrow academic treatment in the latest Atlantic magazine, after Rolling Stone's blockbuster piece last month about the fallen pop princess. Also pillaged from Gawker, a sample paragraph:

In the dark sewer of misanthropic, gynophobic, and Rabelaisian epithets running through the comments section of celebrity blogs, one can also find gems of authentic emotional connection to celebrity foibles... A good number of readers seem to write in the openly delusional... belief that if their post is sincere or hateful enough, the walls separating their own lives from the lives of celebrities will dissolve, transporting them from the backlit world of their LCD screens to the super-pollinated atmosphere of the media daisy chain.

Yes, yes, that's very smart. Also, familiar for anyone lurking on these internets who were fans of one Andrew Hearst's magazine mock-ups. Hearst loved playing with the form, and the most classic of his covers was his rendering of an Us Weekly as Harper's, the small, spare font lending new gravitas to questions like, "Brad Wants Jen Back — But Can She Forgive Him?" and "How Jessica's Staying Skinny" (see, this was a while ago - predated Brangelina entirely). In this latest Atlantic comes the realization of that once-imagined notion of the perfect union of highbrow and lowbrow (and also, as Gawker's Ryan Tate rightfully points out, the commodification of Lindsay Lohan's naked breasts. Tate notes that these starlet-based magazine features have been huge traffic drivers; I submit to you that now I have a legitimate reason to tag this item with "Naked Lindsay Lohan."

At any rate, peruse Hearst's oeuvre if you can, the covers hold up (so well that his employer since they were created, Vanity Fair, commissioned him to do special versions for the magazine). My particular favorites are from his New York Review of Books spoof, — "Joyce Carol Oates on 'America's Next Top Model'" and his Esquire spoof, "Jessica Simpson Has A Cold (Also, A Giant Rack)." Yay — now I get to tag this with "Jessica Simpson's Rack."

Everyone Officially A Tabloid Or About To Become One [Gawker]
Panopticist: The Magazine Covers [Panopticist]

Related:
The Tragedy of Britney Spears [Rolling Stone]

Naked Lindsay Lohan [New York]

Atlantic cover via Daily Swarm via Gawker; Harper's/Us Weekly cover mock by Andrew Hearst via Panopticist.

Comments

[cplKlyde]

08:58 PM on 03/10/2008

I saw this and I said out loud "Naw this can't be." My teenage daughter was walking by and asked "What?" I told her Briney was on the cover of The Atlantic. He response: "Wait isn't that (the Atlantic) for ...smart people?" Well apparently not anymore honey but I should have known that when they hired sully and Megan Mcardle

[aigeanta]

06:53 AM on 03/09/2008

At least Britney's hair looks a little less greasy.

[NoSillyName]

06:24 PM on 03/08/2008

"Graces"? Hope they were being facetious. Did she get paid for this? Ms. Moneybags.... more money than brains or common sense. She's such a mess, I kinda feel sorry for her and other former child stars. Blame the parents.

[gregnsf]

12:43 PM on 03/08/2008

Once a magazine hires Andrew Sullivan as an editor it starts to tumble. Think also of The New Republic.

[jubo]

09:30 AM on 03/08/2008

The article is about paparazzi. Not a good idea. Especially since things seem (through silence) to be going better for her.

All they are interested in, and especially fomenting, is her downfall. Don't buy that press.

[GQTaste]

03:56 AM on 03/08/2008

This pathtic excuse for a human being gets what she deserves. She's a famwhore 100%! She's so sick words can't express how much of a turd this grown women has become. Or has she always been this way? Probably. She's the lowest of the low. Bottom of the barrel. Makes me sick to my stomach.


Why do you think she seeks out attention? Because she's so afraid they'd go away she wouldn't know how to live w/o them. It's no accident that everyday she courts them. Tips them off on where she's going to be. Reminds me of the scene in Soapdish where Sally Field goes to the mall to get noticied and then be showered w/ praise from the women who realize it's her.

And you know why she's like this? Because she has no real talent. If that were fiction she wouldn't have to stup to her shenigans. Just like a drug addict needs a fix of whatever their into. It's the same thing. And of course women and a lot of gay men out there eat all of this up and continue the cycle sadly.

[VivaZapata]

07:48 AM on 03/08/2008

though there is more than enough truth in GQTaste's words, vilifying Spears is missing the larger picture. the criminality here is the child abuse of childhood stars, etc. her story is not unlike many others who had an unreal upbringing, full of terrible values and misplaced priorities. yes, her behavior needs to be stopped, but who is really to blame for how she developed? that's the more important story.

[verlaine]

10:57 PM on 03/07/2008

The Atlantic has disgraced itself and seriously harmed its reputation

[leftLibertarian]

07:57 PM on 03/07/2008

HOw embarrassing ! I'm glad I don't subscribe any longer!!