Britney and Jamie Lynn: America's Rorschach Tests

 

THE SHRIEKS OF JOY CAN BE HEARD ALL ACROSS AMERICA From inside Tabloidville: Whippee! Another Spears girl is preggers! Britney's baby sister, Jamie Lynn, who stars as the levelheaded Zoey in Nickelodeon's Zoey 101, is three months' along, according to OK! magazine. Won't be long now before faux comic Sarah Silverman's pointing out another "beautiful mistake" bearing the last name Spears. Won't be long 'til the congregation of the Southland Christian Church is adding Britney's younger sister to their prayer circle.

What to say? That Jamie Lynn is only one of the estimated 750,000 U.S. teens who get pregnant annually, of which about two-thirds go on to deliver babies. That surely she will become a lightning rod for activists on both sides'of the abortion line. That Britney will finally have someone to deflect paparrazi attention away from her, and who can understand how difficult it is to be a good mother. That Sean and Jared will have a cousin to go trick-or-treating with, but only if their mean mommy plays along with the paps and takes them out for candy. That a baby boom among America's teens will be reported on in, oh, say about two to three years? And imagine the potential tie-ins for the promotion of Lynn Spears' book on motherhood due out next Mother's Day? All easy predictions.

This is something else we know for sure: that Britney, and now Jamie Lynn, are America's very own public Rorschach tests. What you think of them, whether you scold or defend them, is a reflection of your very own world view. Are they sluts looking for attention? Are they the little lost daughters of Lynn? Are they the byproducts of modern day's Sodom and Gommorah, that place we called Hollywood? Or are they typical kids who didn't think of their consequences, got knocked up, but instead of aborting went ahead and had babies?

The end of this story won't be known until Brit and Jamie Lynn are dead and their children are all grown up. But keep this in mind as you watch the show: however you interpret the outcome will be a self-fulfilling prophesy.