With her combination of ambition, crassness and a look that combines All American Girl with Jordan, Britney Spears is the cultural icon our age deserves. More importantly, she is conclusive proof that star power no longer has anything to do with charisma. She is all smoke and mirrors ñ and for once that's not a drugs reference. There is no doubting Britney's ability to turn out the odd classic pop song, turn on FHM readers or execute a 360 degree turn in a dance routine, as Glasgow will find out this week. But meet her and it is all a different story. Britney is right up there with Kylie Minogue for never saying anything controversial, never saying anything intelligent and certainly never saying anything that will make you laugh.

 

Well, not intentionally.

 

I've interviewed her three times at different stages of her career. Nothing prepares you for quite how ferociously boring she is. There is simply nothing there.

 

The first time was way back in December 1999, backstage at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party. These were the early days, when she was still genuinely enthused to be picking up awards at a ceremony that had just named Adam Rickett (of Nick-in-Corrie fame) Best Actor In The World. There was no cynicism, just professional politeness. And not a lot else. Saying, "Gee, this is nice" is about as complex as Britney got that day. But then she was only 18 and still playing at being the girl next door. Nowadays that's only true if your house is next to a brothel.

 

There is a theory that a star's intellectual development is stunted the moment they become famous. For Britney a Mickey Mouse education was a reality, not a description. She joined the Mickey Mouse Club at the age of 11. It could be argued she has been 11 ever since. Even now this on-screen temptress, who encourages men to join the mile high club in her videos, is seen out in public with her mother stroking her hair extensions like a pet.

 

Intellect, no. But dedication? Yes. To create that famous stomach of hers Britney did over 3000 sit-ups a day. Even her dietician and trainer described her as a robot. Her facialist had to ban her from using the sunbed, such was her hunger for perfection.

 

The second time I met Britney ñ about three million sit-ups later ñ was at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002. She was promoting her debut movie Crossroads. Not surprisingly this was also her last movie.

 

I ran to meet her straight from a studio-imposed (never to be used) chat with Kristy Swanson, who 10 years earlier had played Buffy in the original movie. Britney's chat made Swanson look like Peter O'Toole in the raconteur stakes.

 

Flanked by massive bouncers, Britney was now treating herself with dangerous importance ñ but without the vocabulary to back it up. That day she kept droning on about being on the cusp of womanhood, a theme she felt she was tackling in her film and in her current album (the one featuring the Dido-penned I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman). But it was around this time that Britney perfected the use of the "that's personal" deflective response to any question not directly about the product she was promoting. This technique is now industry standard and has helped devalue the celebrity interview even further.

 

Our third and final encounter was in January this year at the premiere of a Pepsi commercial. That says it all really. Britney is now a brand whose TV ads command their own red carpet events. The interview lasted about as long as her marriage. Three questions in, I asked her why she was still wearing her engagement ring. A look a blank confusion took over. How could someone have dared to ask a question not linked to her dressing up as a Roman gladiator to advertise a carbonated drink along with Pink, BeyoncÈ and Brian May from Queen? I repeated the question and she was dragged off by an irate PR. Britney ñ dangerous enough to kiss a woman old enough to be her mother at the MTV Awards, but without the wit to have a funny stock answer to a question she is obviously going to be asked.

 

Last week Britney was touting around her own Osbourne-style reality show. EnTOURage is a six-part look at life backstage on her current tour, with a budget of $1 million per episode. Let's hope that's going on a script writer.

 

But her vacant mental state is only half the reason why Britney disappoints as a cultural icon. That very status denotes some influence over society.

 

After much thinking, here is a list of Britney's far reaching impact: she has made the midriff fashionable; brought back the trilby and flat caps; popularised the LA bimbo look; paved the way for the likes of Jessica Simpson and Mandy Moore, and made boob jobs for teenage girls commonplace. A real source of pride that lot. Oh, and if she had never kissed Madonna then there would have been no Janet Jackson nipple at the Superbowl. Britney has taken sexual shock tactics into a whole new areola.

 

But her calculated stunts no longer work. The first time she appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1999 she caused a sensation by lying back on a bed clutching a Teletubby. For her latest she practically showed her own Tinky Winky by wearing absolutely nothing. Her kit dropping has reached Demi Moore-like proportions.

 

The genuinely interesting part of Britney is how out of control she is ñ very few stars have lost it in so public a way.

 

Things started to go wrong in 2002. She was dumped by Justin Timberlake and her parents divorced. She flipped a Mexican crowd the bird when they shouted "Fraud" at her for miming, ignored her fans at the London premiere of Crossroads and started dating Fred Durst and Colin Farrell, as if she had phoned up Rent-A-Bad-Boy.

 

But then in November last year everything caught up with her during a TV interview with Diane Sawyer for ABC News. When the Timberlake break-up was mentioned, Britney simply broke down. She became gibbering and incomprehensible. No amount of stage-school training could save her at this moment. Her face contorted with hurt. "Can we stop?" she begged putting up her hand. A star of her magnitude has seldom ever been that exposed on TV. It was truly disturbing and compelling viewing and proof that Britney is only fascinating when she is unwittingly destroying her carefully constructed image.

 

Her two-day marriage in Vegas last January was further evidence. It is a shocking sign of the times that within a month she was on Blue Peter ñ Britney received a badge for performing Toxic, a song whose video is so rude that it cannot be shown pre-watershed. An elephant peeing on John Noakes it is not. Blue Peter used to pride itself as being one of the last bastions of wholesome values; now, like everything else, it was simply pandering to celebrity.

 

We truly live in an era of "here are some hair extensions I prepared earlier" ... and in that world Britney is our queen.

 

- Colin Paterson is a former presenter of the BBC's showbiz programme Liquid News

 

© newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved http://www.sundayherald.com/41451

Comment
From Kathy Fisher
4-26-4

I wouldn`t wish this girl on my worst enemy...but then isn't this why so many young men are either single, going through a divorce or gay? Thanks to freaks like B.S....sorry, that just happens to be her initials.

The world is headed for test tube babies and a ban on marriage. And to think, years ago, men joked about Amazon women taking over the world. Now look what their sons have to look forward to.

Although I do have to question Colin Petterson - he went back for a second interview, and he attempted a third try to find intelligent life. So, I have to wonder about his ability to think for himself. Could some of Britney's stupidness have rubbed off on him? Perhaps there should be a warning label on broads like this: BEWARE! 10 minute interviews only! Any longer could be harmful to your health!