IT has taken longer than any of us could have imagined, but in the last nine days, our celebrity parenting obsession has officially reached bizarre proportions.
This milestone, looming since the days of Demi Moore's infamous pregnant nude shot on the cover of Vanity Fair, was achieved through the prime-time TV interviews of two superstar new mothers, Britney Spears and Angelina Jolie, on programs otherwise dedicated to \o7actual \f7news.
The parenting skills of these women, in any other context, would be no more important to us than, say, their last red carpet walk. But today celebrities, having transcended the image of cultural confection, must devote the same enthusiasm they'd bring to a press junket for their most recent movie or CD to the staging of happy family lives. The public already demands fashion-forward pregnancies and "candid" first photos of (enviably thin) mother and baby. Now we have the televised post-baby sit-down, presented as a news event, preferably with a male reporter to help elevate it to something of real journalistic import.
Take poor Spears -- and yes, we are collectively pitying this multi-platinum pop star and her apparently isolated life up there in that backwater Malibu, where she is hounded day and night by paparazzi. She was once -- as Matt Lauer cheerfully pointed out on his June 15 "Dateline NBC" special via clip after clip after clip -- hard bodied, young and successful, a sexpot, yet virginal ... an American dream. Then, as Lauer reminded her ominously, "the press turned."
It seemed Spears lacked a crucial skill needed to thrive as a celebrity parent -- the fine art of the staged family vignette. Control is key, and since the birth of Sean Preston in October, Spears has seemed utterly incapable of it. Unlike the carefully coiffed Catherine Zeta-Jones, seen frolicking at the park with her toddler daughter Carys, or Gwen Stefani, snapped with perfect lipstick and jewelry and 2-week-old Kingston James in her arms, Spears was photographed behind the wheel of her convertible, her infant son slumped pitifully forward in his forward-facing car seat.
For her interview with Lauer, in which she addressed accusations of being a "redneck" and a "bad mom," Spears, just 24, looked hard, wearing visible hair extensions, a translucent sleeveless top with spilling cleavage and flip-flops. She smacked her gum and wiped her nose with the back of her hand as she sobbed over the paparazzi's relentless pursuit of her. It was ugly and sad and yet another reminder that child stardom often leads to tragic adulthood. But that was all.
