Britney's Car Wreck

Wow -- I finally have a stupid blonde to write about who isn't Ann Coulter.

Did you catch Britney Spears and her interview with Matt Lauer on NBC's "Dateline"? If you didn't, you missed some amazing television (and I wouldn't be surprised if some enterprising young actress was working on turning it into an Off-Off Broadway show even as we speak).

It was a total car wreck. I don't know whose idea it was for her to do a TV interview, but if that's Britney's idea of damage control than somebody ought to call child protective services, because this chick is totally out of her mind and should be not be allowed anywhere near children.

Describing herself as "an emotional wreck" and heavily pregnant (her boobs looked like they were going to explode out of her blouse), Britney cried, joked, chewed gum, told Lauer that she liked money, made little quotation marks with her fingers, and basically gave the impression that she is not only a redneck, but a complete idiot as well.

Now, I know people who know both Britney and her husband, Kevin Federline (I wish I could tell you the gossip I've been told about the latter, but it's so amazingly scurrilous that I can't even post it on a blog), and I feel bad for Britney. She was controlled by those around her for a very long time and it's only natural that a young woman who is rich and famous would want a little freedom and the right to take control of her own destiny. The only problem with that is that, sometimes, the people who are controlling your destiny are a lot smarter than you, and when you take your life into your own hands, you completely screw it up -- which is what appears to have happened with Britney Spears.

I have this concept that I like to talk about called Radical Freedom. This is when you are so rich and so famous that you can pretty much do whatever the hell you feel like doing. Sounds great, right? You are outside of all social norms. No constraints on your conduct whatsoever. You can do anything because you can buy your way out of anything, and as long as the money holds out there will always be an army of hangers-on who will rationalize and enable your bad behavior.

Now, some people can have radical freedom and emerge unscathed. Oprah Winfrey is one of the rare examples of someone having radical freedom and making it work for her. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are two more (the lousy recent movies of the latter notwithstanding).

But radical freedom can also destroy your life. Michael Jackson is the most obvious example of that. Elvis Presley is another example. So is Whitney Houston. It's possible that Lindsay Lohan is going that route, although it's way too soon to tell. Sometimes having the kinds of social constraints that most of us have to endure is the only thing that keeps us from wrecking our lives.

I think Britney Spears is turning herself into a classic example of how having too much money and not enough brains (for example, there isn't a starlet in Hollywood who doesn't know that, if you're in show business, marriage is a career move) can turn your life into the kind of tacky soap opera that sells magazines. If she came to me for advice (and God knows she isn't), I would tell her to take K-Fed and the kids and move to Louisiana and stay there for the next couple of years, until she's ready to reinvent herself.

But in the meantime, like any car wreck, the only tasteful thing to do is not look at the garish and bloody scene, so I'll try to avoid reading or watching any coverage of Britney Spears in the future.

Tom Moran