Britney is the new Kurt Cobain. And the new Tupac. And the new Jesus. And the new John Barleycorn—the straw man ritually murdered and resurrected every harvest season in the English pagan tradition. Did you know that, as late as the 18th century, peasants gathered at public hangings in England could be heard muttering about how the stringing up of a couple of highwaymen would guarantee a good harvest that year?
Our ancestors knew something we’ve forgotten. The gods thirst for blood. Buddy Holly, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe all died for our sins, and in doing so guaranteed our nation’s postwar prosperity.
Then, in 1981, Bill Haley did something hideous and unforgivable. He became the first rock ’n’ roller to die of natural causes. Denied their 300 pounds of aging-rocker flesh, the gods howled in frustration. And took their revenge. That was the year the Antichrist—Ronald Wilson Reagan (six letters, six letters, six letters)—took office as U.S. president and thus began the moral, political and social decline of the West, resulting in the chimp-prez-stricken horror show we see around us today.
This universal thirst for human sacrifice—seen in cultures as geographically and chronologically diverse as the Israelites and the Aztecs—has been well-documented by such giants in the field of anthropology as Joseph Campbell and Sir James George Frazer. Both men died before they could comment on the age of Big Brother and American Idol. But I think I know what that comment would be: “Open the flood gates and drown these crass abominations in blood. For they mock the gods.”
But before we get into that: I love The Soup on E! because it gives you a whole week’s worth of bimbonic reality-TV hoo-ha and identi-celeb hot-gos delivered by a sneering, gawky dickhead with cute, fuzzy baby hair. I watch it religiously. And I use that word advisedly.
And it’s thanks to The Soup that I can definitively state that Britney is so the new Kurt. Think about it. Both had one great song (and a load of samey, so-so stuff). Both married groupie wannabes hated by their mental fan bases. Kurt blew his hair off. Britney shaved hers. It’s uncanny.
The fact is, we need Britney to sacrifice herself for us. There was a time when celebrities seemed to subconsciously realize their main function was to die for our sins. Think Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, James Dean, Janis Joplin, John Barleycorn, JFK, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, Jayne Mansfield and Jesus.
What did they all have in common? Exactly. The letter J. If Britney’s name was Jitney Jears, there’s little doubt the thinking-man’s pop minx would have been killed years ago—resulting in bumper crops, wonderful weather and record album sales. Because overdosed or brutally slaughtered celebs are like catnip for the gods. And when they stop getting them, we end up with global warming, hurricanes and Babel.
But nowadays—thanks to seat-belts, drunk-driving laws and rehab—celebrities hang around forever, cluttering up the karmic wheel with their bloated egos. We’ve got a celeb-glut. And it’s left us spiritually constipated. Which I guess is why we all metaphysically shat our pants with excitement when Anna Nicole Smith popped upstairs. Fact is, her overdose probably staved off another tsunami.
Britney is doing a Sinéad O’Connor—going publicly potty on our behalf as penance for her fellow celebs not popping clog fast enough. We need to thank her for that. And let Mark Chapman out of jail. And sharpen our sickles. I feel a harvest coming on.