Short Rant on Scum II

Unless you happen to exist within a Shakespeare play and have been brutally slain by a treacherous brother you should never live through your children. If you personally lack the necessary talent and ability to make a success of your life then you get to enjoy your menial job as John McCririck’s wife. What you don’t get to do is exploit your child as though they are some kind of temporal rift to escape failure; unless you are Kerry Campbell, mother and nefarious demon [sic], that is. She has some pretty interesting views on what it takes to be a celebrity; i.e. copious levels of cosmetics and the beginings of a mental disorder. However being far too plain to even feature in an advertisement for gunmetal grey wallpaper Kerry is forced to put her eight year old daughter Britney through this vigorous regime; think Training Day if it were set in Mumbai’s The Beauty Shop.

In an insane bid to make her daughter famous later in life Kerry pumps young Britney’s face with enough poison (or Botox as it is politely referred) to cause another outbreak of Minamata disease and subjects her to more waxing sessions than a John Keats poem that waxes lyrical about a cocking mundane and inanimate object. Despite this she fails to actually focus on helping her daughter cultivate any particular relevant skill. Just what exactly is Britney going to become famous for, being more of a waste of oxygen than an oxygen bar managed by Paris Hilton? Or perhaps for having a face that’s more of a grotesque spectacle than a San Marino football match, after the years of many unnecessary cosmetic surgeries have ruined it.

Tellingly there are signs of how warped Britney’s psyche has become, she claims that whenever she discovers a ‘wrinkle’ she desires further doses of Botox. Now being an insufferable misopedist I am no expert regarding children but surely the skin of the average eight year old naturally resembles the surface of a pair of trousers that have just been pressed? She also apparently wants breast enlargement surgery which frankly seems like trying to shove two melons in a pillowcase. The fact that she uses the terminology “so that I can be a star” leads us to question whether her mother is actually a supportive yet misguided parent or if Kerry Campbell is an anagram for Svengali the evil hypnotist. Whilst the family hails from England (nice bit of public relations for our already tarnished nation) they currently reside in America, where they have become exposed to the insane and competitive world of child beauty pageants; surprise bloody surprise, that bit of information is as unexpected as King Lear’s betrayal at the hands of his daughters.

Much like how Darth Sidious claimed to be pious and well intentioned whilst assuming his role as Senator of Naboo, Kerry claims she isn’t doing anything illegal or immoral since she is only trying to give her daughter an extra edge in life. Illegal? No. Immoral? Unquestionably. Not only has she destroyed her daughter’s childhood, and brainwashed her completely but she is also doing potentially harmful things to her body; all in the name of achieving her own ambitions. The fact that she also believes the ability to achieve fame is simply a matter of how you outwardly appear means this can either be seen as a cautionary tale of a pushy parent’s single minded ‘quest’ or as an indictment of a society where to become a celebrity all you need is a CV that states you got your tits out ‘that one time’ on MTV.