Hump, Marry, Kill: Americans Are Slaves To Britney Spears

Hump: I know it’s stunt casting, but holy six-pack, Kate Hudson. She is as hot as the day she breezed into our lives as Penny Lane in Almost Famous. As the washed-up, alcoholic, batsh*t-crazy former Broadway star Cassandra July on Glee, it’s Hudson’s job to make Rachel Berry’s transition to faux-Juilliard, “NYADA,” a total nightmare. She calls Rachel “little Miss David Schwimmer” (probably the most painfully accurate description of Lea Michele that has ever existed) and says amazing things like, “You ever look at a map? Ohio’s like a giant turd that Michigan just can’t pinch off.”

I’m sure not many dance teachers feel the need to get sauced and perform for their students to demonstrate just how superior they are to them (there’s a reason you’re the teacher and they’re the students, Cassie), but when you’ve got abs and legs like that, you flaunt them whenever the heck you want. And flaunt she does.

Marry: After watching Thursday night’s episode of The X Factor, I have to give Britney Spears so much credit for managing to exist in society for all these years. I get that the producers show most of the crazies because it makes for good television, but my god, there are a lot of obsessed Britney fans out there. Like, creepily obsessed. Uncomfortably obsessed.

What really got me, though, was how forgiving and accepting Britney managed to be about all the weirdos who showed up to fake audition merely to spend a few minutes in her eyeline. The woman’s every move has been scrutinized by the public at large since she was 16. Then, on top of that, even people who claim to be her “biggest fans” turn on her in a second when she says they’re not cut out to be singers on a reality show, even though they know they can’t sing and that they’re only there to see her.

Seriously, it can’t be easy to be Britney Spears. I can’t believe she only shaved her head and beat a car with a golf club once.

Kill: Like all Ryan Murphy shows, The New Normal is off to a strong start. In my opinion, however, there’s just no need for Ellen Barkin’s character to be as homophobic, racist, and rude as she is. At a certain point, it stops feeling okay to laugh at her comments and moves into “this makes me feel kinda icky” territory. I just don’t see how they can sustain the character without growth or development, yet that would feel unnatural to how she’s been set up so far. I love me some Ellen Barkin, but not like this. Never like this.