sad that Britney Spears lives in a world where “Britney Spears” does not exist.
anyone else can say ‘it’s Britney, bitch’ and achieve a certain effect on the listener that Britney herself cannot; she remains isolated, aloof.
in the scenario depicted by …Baby One More Time in which Britney Spears plays a besotted schoolgirl, “Britney Spears” does not exist, otherwise her classmates would immediately stop their synchronised backup dancing and say holy shit, that’s Britney Spears.
this is in stark contrast to I Want It That Way, in which the Backstreet Boys appear to their fans “in character”, trying to collapse the distinction between reality and musical fantasy.
Ocean’s Twelve attempted to have it both ways by having a character played by Julia Roberts pretend to be Julia Roberts, implying that “Julia Roberts” exists in the world portrayed by Ocean’s Twelve. However the movie “Ocean’s Twelve” does not exist in this world, otherwise the characters would say wait, isn’t this just what happened in Ocean’s Twelve?
Mel Brooks went one step further and took advantage of temporal anomalies to place a VHS copy of the movie “Spaceballs” within the movie Spaceballs itself, allowing the characters in the movie to gain insight into their own future, though they remained curiously incurious about the revelation that they were merely figments of the script writer’s imagination.
all of our minds contain a reference to “celebrity performer Britney Spears”, but the mind of Britney Spears does not; we can never be her, and indeed to be her would be to lose her.
Argumate Movie AU where there is no Argumate
