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The agent told her mother she'd be a symbol of the New South and took her to a dogtrot house for the shoot. She'd brought her own pink halter, whose ties she knew brushed her bare skin when she moved. She understood his vision right away: She should grasp the whitewashed column like a pole, hold it like she'd never left her home.
—Rachel Richardson 2008, 279
I'm convinced she's an inbred hick/Gosh golly, ma dawters so a purrrty.
—Gavin Campbell 2001, 82
Leave Britney Alone!
—Chris Crocker 2007
The US celebrity system is built on three interconnected premises: if a person works hard enough, leverages their talent, and finds themselves in front of the right people, then they will be successful; ordinary people can become famous if they want it badly enough and make strategic decisions; and, people will root for an underdog because they enjoy a Pygmalion transformation. If celebrity is the perfect marriage between neoliberal capitalism and the American Dream because it promises anything is possible, then pop star Britney Spears exposes the fissures of an idealized system. Spears shows us that not everyone can be transformed and that public shaming awaits those whose behavior betrays what is expected of affluent white women.
In this essay, I argue that despite achieving megastardom, Spears was not transformed into the "right" kind of neoliberal subject because she remained defiantly rural, Southern, and working class despite access to wealth and power. When Spears went from virginal yet provocative "good girl"1 to out-of-control "bad girl," many blamed Spears for being a morally reprehensible "white trash"2 woman who was either unable or unwilling to rise above her roots. In other words, Spears faced public ridicule because she failed to use the celebrity system to convert financial capital into cultural and social capital (Bourdieu 1984). The racialized class disgust directed toward Spears demonstrates lingering tensions over race, gender, and class, mapped onto historical tensions between the US North and South. Spears teaches us that the celebrity system cannot uplift everyone, particularly those who cling to a rural, Southern, working-class identity.
This essay focuses on Spears's career as a teen performer, sexual adult, and mother (1997–2007). In late 2007, questions about her mental health arose (Voronka 2008)....