The Dehumanization of Britney Spears

The Kitty Genovese story has long represented one of the most tragic examples of social apathy. In 1964, Ms. Genovese was repeatedly stabbed on her way home late one night while some 38 neighbors who heard her screams failed to call the police. “Her case came to symbolize the corruption of modern city life, a life in which everyone is too frightened or too selfish to help another person, a life in which the value of humanitarianism has been forgotten,” Professor Helen Benedict of Columbia University once said.

Ms. Genovese’s avoidable tragedy came to mind last Saturday as I read the New York Post. The paper’s cover prominently featured a picture of a distraught woman being forcibly restrained by paramedics. The photo was extremely unsettling, as the woman – wholly unrecognizable to me – was clearly terrified, her raw emotional pain clearly captured.

I was stunned to read that the woman in question was Britney Spears. I may not be a fan of her music or some of her lifestyle choices, but that had no relevance Saturday morning. Staring at that haunting image, I was overwhelmed with compassion for the person caught in the photographer’s lens. It was not a picture of an award-winning performer who has sold millions of albums worldwide. It was simply that of a person… a daughter, a sister, a friend… a mother of two… and she was clearly in need of help.

It didn’t take long for the opportunistic vultures to feast on what they deemed the latest offering to a culture gone mad in its obsession with celebrity. The fact that the paparazzi had gotten that shot of her on the gurney makes that point abundantly clear. Dr. Phil’s reported press release, website postings (“DR. PHIL COMMENTS ON BRITNEY SPEARS – CLICK HERE!”), and morning talk show participation about his involvement with the Spears family and planned family intervention on his own show were an embarrassment to mental health professionals everywhere. The Times of London had a thoughtful piece earlier today on this repugnant but probably inevitable chain of events titled “Cashing in on the Britney Spears Breakdown.”

While celebrities may have to “pay” for their fame with their privacy, there is no moral justification for such intrusion when the person in question is clearly in the midst of some medical emergency, physical or mental. While I didn’t plan to return to blogging perched atop my high and mighty soapbox, I am simply aghast at the total dehumanization of Britney Spears in this weekend’s coverage. Speculation ran rampant on the cause of her crisis, her song titles were parodied and punned, timelines of her descent from her days at the top of the music world charted and published, unflattering photos of her endlessly produced and posted…

Enough already.

Like the vast majority of what’s been published since Thursday’s incident at Ms. Spears’ home, The Post’s coverage underscores the media’s failure to appreciate that mental illness is a serious disease afflicting tens of millions of Americans. All reporters and editors saw was the celebrity, the icon, the persona, the brand. Dismissive characterizations like “trainwreck” and “fallen pop princess” abounded. Even The New York Times took a cavalier attitude, as evidenced in a staffer’s blog title – “Gee. A Bizarre Britney Incident. Imagine That.” The fact that she is a person with all the emotions and imperfections that are part and parcel of our kind never seemed to enter the equation.

Admittedly, the Post is not known for its decorum and restraint, particularly in its coverage of celebrities, but even they must have the proverbial line in the sand that they will not cross. If some sleazy paparazzo came to them with an ill-gotten photo of a celebrity vomiting after completing a round of chemotherapy treatment, would they run it? Probably not. Or how about a cell phone image surreptitiously snapped in the gym changing room of the scarred, post-surgical breast of a famous breast-cancer survivor? I doubt it…

One of the enduring myths of the Kitty Genovese tragedy is that none of the witnesses who heard her screams did anything. In fact, one of her neighbors shouted, “Let that girl alone,” which prompted the attacker to temporarily leave the scene. Perhaps if more people had opened their windows and shouted, Ms. Genovese’s tale would have had a very different ending.

Forty years later, we see another 20-something woman in clear crisis who desperately needs perfect strangers to shun instinctual apathy and loudly shout out “Let that girl alone.” The strangers in question are, of course, all of us and the attacker in question is the media. After all, we are the ultimate consumer of the media’s cold, merciless trespasses into her privacy. It is done for our entertainment and folly, and in exchange for our dollars, both directly and indirectly.

Statistics show that depression is rampant in this country, leading to a dramatic rise in suicides. It is also generally believed to be a key contributor to other life threatening illnesses such as heart disease. Yet the disease retains a social stigma (reinforced by headlines referring to psychiatric wards as “loony bins”), so the majority of people who are inflicted with it understandably forgo any kind of treatment.

Regardless of the specifics behind Ms. Spears’ troubles, the fact that she is undergoing a very real personal crisis seems apparent to even the most-distant and otherwise disengaged observer such as myself. She is deserving of a modicum of compassion simply because she is a human being. At the risk of inadvertently coming off as an apologist (or worse, Chris Crocker!), enough already.

Let that girl alone.

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