Strange Criticisms

On Saturday, I spent the afternoon having pictures taken (for my new side-line as a male model, of course. You may have seen me on the cover of "Green Towel" magazine this month. Alternately, it may be because of The Reason, but that's far less amusing.), then ventured to Andrew and Aileen's house for pizza and TV.

Amongst the TV, I watched "The X-Factor" for the first time, which was a less than wonderful experience. However, I've largely recovered from the travesty that is the best performer on the night being voted off, while the girl who has been selected as the eventual winner was truly woeful in both her performances. (I mean really, really bad.)

I also saw Britney's performance on the show.

In the news over the last couple of days, Britney has been harshly criticised for this performace, with one of the key complaints being that she mimed her way through it. Which rather raises the question: what did people expect? Britney doesn't sing live. Even when she's at the very top of her game, she doesn't sing live (although then it's because her performance is so energetic that she simply couldn't).

A rather better criticism might be that "Womaniser" is an absolutely terrible single. So bad, in fact, that it doesn't even deserve to be labelled a song. Still, this also is not new: Britney doesn't exactly have a back catalogue bursting with good material.

Actually, it's lucky that they had the contestants sing twice on the show on Saturday, because doing a Britney-night was really not a good idea. Frankly, doing artist-themed nights isn't a good idea when dealing with widely varied voices and types of performers, but in the case of Britney, there really isn't much to choose from. Of the five contestants, only one managed a good performance (and that of a track that Britney herself had covered) while a second managed an okay performance. The others ranged from abysmal to poor. With the second performance, three were vastly improved, one slipped from excellent to not great (but was much better with her 'farewell' performance), while the fifth remained dire.

It's odd, though. While Britney was doing well, the media took great pleasure in criticising her at every turn. As her life fell apart, the glee was almost palpable. It got to the point where even South Park started saying, "this isn't funny any more". Then, finally, she reached rock bottom, and the media seemed to back off a bit. She was allowed to get herself together.

And now, just as things start looking up, and she appears in the UK for a comeback performace, the knives come out again, as vicious as before. Is it just a reflex action that they have to hate anyone they perceive as doing well?

Also, I can't believe I'm defending Britney Spears. Again.