5 Better Things We Can Do With Britney Spears

Last night Britney Spears proved once again what I've been noticing since she went on a bender, gained forty pounds, shaved her head, had babies with regrettable temporary spouses, learned karate with an umbrella, drank forty too many frappuccinos, and showed her vagina to everyone: the lady is over.

Let me put this out there to at least cut down on the hate commentary I will be getting: I love Britney Spears! I am still playing her newest album on repeat.

I just can't stand to watch her appear live anywhere any longer. It's too depressing. It's like seeing an old horse that should have been shipped to the Elmer's Glue Factory three years ago being trotted out and poked with electric cattle prods until it prances in one direction, then another, precarious inches from keeling over, its eyes brimming with sadness and confusion.

LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!

And unlike Chris Crocker, my screaming isn't directed at the haters and critics. Rather, my plea is aimed squarely at Britney's handlers. The owners of this no-show pony who keep shoving her out of the stable to dance when all she wants to do is lie down and wait for death to overtake her like a deer tick infestation.

Feel free to bring a microphone to her home, and then auto-tune her voice until she sounds like the Svedka Robot at a karaoke bar. Feel free to animate her like you did in that one music video when she was too drunk to stumble to a film studio. That's fine! But it's time to let her go. Stick her on an iceberg like a dying eskimo and send her out to sea.

OR. OR. If you MUST continue to use Britney, live performances where she's chewing gum as her backtrack sings are not the way to go.

Here, instead, are five better ways you can use her:

5. WALK-AEROBICS with Britney Spears! Britney gave up dancing a long, long time ago. Yet, she still seems pretty good at walking from one part of a stage to another in high heels (for the most part). So why not film a walking exercise video with her? Old people need to stay active, and Britney can show them how THEY TOO can walk from one place to another. And if they wear high heels, it can help them better strengthen their cankles.

4. Michael Jackson Her! When Michael Jackson died, the world mourned. But the smoke had barely escaped MJ's skinny cadaver before the record companies had devised ways to continue cashing in on the now dethroned King of Pop - by using pre-recorded songs of his and having present-day artists duet with him like he was actually there. This has also been done to Nat King Cole. Well - can't we do this with Britney? Just act like she's dead and bring in other pop stars to duet with her pre-recorded voice? We don't actually have to kill her, just lock her away somewhere (assuming she'd care we were doing this). I mean, this is basically what happened with the remix of Till The World Ends with Nicki Minaj and Ke$ha anyway... so maybe this plan is already in motion.

3. Animate Her! Hatsune Miko is one of the BIGGEST pop stars in Japan today. She packs thousands upon thousands of frothing fans into her live venues. And not a single ONE of them seems to give a shit that she is a three-dimensional holographic computer animation. Why can't we do this with Britney? Hire Dreamworks or Pixar to replicate Britney from the good days - let's say the Toxic era. And then we can just play her old CDs and have the computer version bounce around the stage with the choreography we fondly remember her nailing with grace and poise. As a bonus, we can have her do even cooler things, like fly and turn into an emotive, hopping desk lamp.

2. SpokesBritney! While Britney cannot grab attention live, she still seems plenty good at purring and cooing to a video camera, especially if there are a lot of cuts between different angles to make it look like she's moving or caring. So why not just have her serve as spokes model for products and companies? I can think of a few: Lipsyncing lessons. Planned Parenthood. Starbucks Bottled Frappuccino. Jenny Craig. The options are endless!

1. Speaker's Circuit! Okay, maybe Britney's handlers don't WANT to take her off tour. Maybe it's because people are still willing to shell out tons of cash to see her stand and hobble while gymnasts and aerialists work extra hard around her to make it worth the ticket price. That's fine! Who says Britney has to sing OR dance? Let's put her on a speaker circuit! She can stand comfortably behind a podium (allowing her to wear whatever slouchy jeans she'd rather have on), she can just adlib (since tabloids LOVE to quote anything that spills out of her mouth). Hell, why not just re-brand her as a spoken word poet? She can just stand there on the stage and lip sync to someone else's pre-recorded work, and you can still have all the jugglers, firebreathers, and jungle animals dancing around her.

I will repeat this one last time: I LOVE BRITNEY SPEARS. Or, rather, I love the smart Harvard graduated men behind her who buy the music she pretends to sing to written by other artists. I love the production value of her albums, whoever is responsible for that. And I loved her when she was young and dreamy eyed, and then sexy and slutty eyed. But I just canNOT keep watching performances like last night.

It's like re-witnessing a train wreck and a ten-car pile up over and over and over again. And the train and cars all have blonde hair and dangerously high heels. 

- Justin Luke