The Britney Spears-Benazir Bhutto dichotomy

by Michelle Pattison Indiana Daily Student (Indiana U.)

Over break, while most of us… by Michelle Pattison Indiana Daily Student (Indiana U.)

Over break, while most of us were catching up on much needed sleep or doing other nonproductive things that we just don’t have the time to do during the regular semester, one 19-year-old college student discovered that he was selected for a very important political position in his home country just days after his mother was killed under some very fishy circumstances.

This young man is a history major at Oxford University. His hobbies include cricket, shooting, horse riding, Tae-kwon-do, pina coladas and getting caught in the rain (just a little humor for a serious subject).

He is Pakistani but was raised outside of Pakistan. His mother was known throughout the world for her efforts for peace in the Middle East.

She served as Pakistan’s Prime Minister for several years before being fired on corruption charges, which she denied. Her father created the Pakistan People’s Party and led it from 1967 to 1979, when he was executed.

She then took over and has led the party since then until she was killed in December in an apparent suicide bombing that some have tried to pass off as her bumping her head on a door handle, although this isn’t widely accepted because generally door handles don’t cause bullet holes.

Anyone have any guesses who I am talking about? No? How about this one?

In the late 1990s, a teenager from Louisiana became an international pop star overnight.

Over the next few years, she became notorious for her crazy and usually risque antics that include kissing Madonna on national television and using a live snake in one of her performances.

However, since 2005-ish, her reputation has quickly crossed from pop superstar to ridiculous, bitchy drama queen.

Her “drama queen” antics include screaming obscenities at an overweight member of the paparazzi, being cited for hitting a parked car in a parking lot and leaving the scene and shaving her head in a moment of (hilarious) insanity.

She was in the news over break for her mental breakdown after losing custody of her kids in a bitter divorce battle.

I’m going to guess that just about everyone knows what I’m talking about, and if you don’t, you should crawl out from the rock you have been living under for the last 10 years (and it’s Britney Spears, btw).

The first two people mentioned are 19-year-old Bilawal Bhutto and his recently deceased mother, Benazir Bhutto.

In terms of worldwide importance, Benazir and Bilawal are highly significant figures. Bilawal, a teen who is younger than probably 80 percent of most college campuses, now holds the power to revolutionize the political climate of Pakistan and ultimately, bring peace to the nation.

What did media cover over break though?

Britney’s standoff with police over losing her kids, her family’s decision to seek mental help for her and (of all people) Dr. Phil’s asinine decision to get involved with the situation.

This makes me sad.

It’s sad that Benazir Bhutto was killed and the media barely took notice.

Famous weekly tabloid Parade did a cover story on her, granted, but even that was botched by them completely acting like she had never died.

The BBC did cover it, but not nearly enough to make people understand how important her death is and how crazy it is that a 19-year-old kid is now in charge of a major political party in the Middle East.

It makes me sad that many media networks gave days, literally days, of coverage to Britney Spears.

They brought in psychoanalysts to speculate on the status of Britney’s mind and the effect that fame has on teenagers. This is ridiculous.

Journalists today have a responsibility more than ever to give the people what is important to understand and recognize. Britney Spears’ va-jay-jay is not one of these things.