5 Unanswered Questions Prompted By 'Britney: For the Record'
After weeks of doling out clips to a Cheeto-starved global audience, MTV finally aired the paparazzi cautionary tale entitled Britney: For the Record last night. "No topic was off limits," boasted the introductory crawl. "No question went unanswered." And no follow-up question went asked! Thus, we left the special with almost as many concerns as we had going in, including:
1. Just how many girls does Britney know who have shaved their head? When asked by an overly solicitous, never-seen interviewer why she had gone to Tarzana to shave her head, Britney began what would become her usual pattern: instead of giving the obvious answer (typically, "Dude, drugs"), she uttered an even weirder non-answer. "People shave their heads every day," she explained. Yes, but women typically don't, unless they're Sinead O'Connor, or they have crash-landed on a lice-infested prison planet with an alien in tow. Instead of rebutting her, the interviewer asked, "Why didn't you tell anyone you were going to do it?" as though Brit-Brit had placed it in her appointment book five weeks prior. We think they all found out about it PDQ, homes!
2. Really? No mention of Sam Lutfi or Adnan Ghalib? The documentary effectively made constant attention from the paparazzi seem both terrifying and awful. So, you know, why did Britney date one? Alas, in this special produced by her manager, she never once uttered the names of Adnan Ghalib and her sedative-dispensing Svengali, Sam Lutfi. Even K-Fed barely rated, earning only one actual mention.
3. Where was Britney's mom, Lynne Spears? Though Britney's father figured heavily into the documentary, cooking his daughter cheese grits and patiently enduring her never-ending slams of him (while thinking, "She's my cash cow. Don't talk back!"), mama Lynne was nowhere to be seen. Was she taking care of a similarly M.I.A. Jamie Lynn, or was the special taped during her "How I Fucked Up My Kids" book tour?
4. What was up with Madonna's face? Late in the documentary, Madonna appeared to subtly woo Britney into a better, more spiritual, more Kabbalah-friendly-if-that's-what-you're-into-and-I-can-give-you-the-books way of life. Sadly, we were too distracted by the Material Girl's face, which appeared to be coated with a lower-jaw CG mist not sighted since Kim Catrall swanned her way through the Sex and the City movie.
5. Did Britney don a beret and then pronounce it "buh-rette"? As tickled as we were by what appeared to be an unwitting, on-camera homage to the famous "Ver-sayce" line from Showgirls, a second viewing reminded us that Britney was probably drawling a command to her assistant, Brett. Narrowly avoided, Spears. We'll meet again.