Last week during supper, we had a serious discussion with our 15-year-old daughter about one of her favourite entertainers: Jamie Lynn Spears, star of the Nickelodeon show Zoey 101 and, as we all now know, pregnant at 16.
Becky saw the news on television with the rest of us, and was shocked that one of her heroes could find herself in such a mess. We talked about role models and proper behaviour. I said I thought Nick should simply replace Spears with another young actress. Becky found the idea of anyone other than Spears playing Zoey to be pretty weird. But she didn't disagree.
Not that it's going to happen. Nick reportedly has a fourth season of Zoey already in the can, so why shouldn't it milk the franchise until it goes dry? And now there's one more thing Jamie Lynn has in common with her big sister Britney. Both have had every last nickel wrung out of them, right up to the moment they lost their value.
The only venue in which basket-case Britney stars these days is the tabloid website TMZ.com, where the "popwreck" is seen staggering from one misadventure to another. Jamie Lynn, meanwhile, is heading home to Louisiana, where she hopes to do a better job of raising her child than she's done of living her life.
Similarities aside, though, there is a huge difference between Jamie Lynn and Britney. A has-been at 26, Britney influences absolutely no one. As Sarah Silverman put it in mocking tribute after Spears sleep-flopped her way through a number at the MTV Video Music Awards last September: "She is 25 years old and she's already accomplished everything she's going to accomplish in her life. It's mind-blowing."
Jamie Lynn, on the other hand, is idolised by millions of adoring teenage girls who want to look like her, act like her and - good grief - be like her. The New York Times ran a front-page story the other day on the impact of Jamie Lynn's announcement, and on how it had prompted discussions of teenage pregnancy in "schools and shopping malls and around the dining room table". I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that Britney's next appearance on the front page of the Times will be her first.
In a sense, the Jamie Lynn story illustrates the dark side of tabloid trash. For much of 2007, Britney entertained us with her bizarre antics. I don't mean to be insensitive, but let's understand that there are two Britneys - the real person who's suffering and whose children and ex-husband are suffering, and the cartoon character who flashes her genitalia and keeps us amused with her court appearances (and non-appearances) and overall dysfunctional behaviour. At a certain level, we know that none of this is funny, but hey, look, there she goes again.
So maybe the genuinely unsettling tale of Jamie Lynn is our come-uppance for laughing at Britney and her neglected kids. Jamie Lynn got pregnant for our sins, having sex with a 19-year-old who reportedly lived with her and her mother in Los Angeles.
And speaking of Mom - that would be Lynne Spears - she's actually been working on a book about parenting, to be brought out by a Christian publisher. The book is now on hold, which, if nothing else, shows that the publishing company, Thomas Nelson, has higher standards than Nick.
Every so often, the farce of celebrity gossip turns tragic, as it did when Anna Nicole Smith died in a drugged stupor earlier this year. Yet we never seem to learn. Even as I write this, TMZ continues to have enormous fun with the "wrecktabulous" singer Amy Winehouse, whose problems threaten to make her an early favourite for the tabloid tragedy of 2008.
If you let your brain idle, you can almost believe that Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and, yes, Britney Spears are living their hard-partying lives for our vicarious pleasure. They're not, of course. There's something sad and disturbing going on, and we pretend we don't see it. So the harsh reality of the Jamie Lynn Spears story brings the year in celebrity gossip to a suitable close.
I wish her luck. I wish her success in her career. And, for my daughter's sake and the sake of millions of others, I wish her to be gone from Zoey 101.
