they're right. it's a complex issue about empowerment and exploitation, but it's turned into this sort of orwellian nightmare where empowerment and exploitation are inseparable from each other.

it's post-britney, i think. i remember living through the 90s and thinking we were turning back the clocks. blondie never hit that kind of media saturation, and madonna was all about the power. even the spice girls were in control. but, the whole fiasco around britney as a manufactured commodity really changed the industry for the worse, and what's happened since makes more sense in the context of a discussion of the supremes or billie holiday than one of madonna or courtney love.