Britney's New Look

Infobox Television episode
Title =Britney's New Look
Series =South Park


Caption =Britney Spears, preparing to shoot herself.
Season =12
Episode =169
Airdate =March 19, 2008
Total Time =22 minutes
Production =1202
Writer = Trey Parker
Director = Trey Parker
Guests =
Episode list =List of South Park episodes
Season list = Infobox South Park season 12 episode list
Prev =Tonsil Trouble
Next =Major Boobage

"Britney's New Look" is episode 1202 (#169) of the animated series "South Park". It was broadcast on March 19, 2008. The episode is a loose parody of "The Lottery". It is available to be streamed at South Park Studios. [http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/164365]

Plot

Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Butters are bored out of their minds while watching a Democratic Party debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama with Randy when the show is interrupted by a news bulletin: Britney Spears has been spotted in South Park, and a man has been paid $100,000 for a photo of her urinating on a ladybug. The kids (and Randy) are so excited by Britney's latest PR disaster that they don't notice Senator Clinton making a spectacularly racist remark when the debate coverage resumes.

The boys decide to stage a photograph of her "crapping" on a squirrel (actually Butters in costume). Butters opposes this idea, saying that Britney's been through enough and that they should leave Britney alone, but they refuse to listen to him. They pass the security at the "Komfort Inn", at which she is staying, by claiming to be her children.

Spears, portrayed in this episode with some sympathy by the makers (who show sympathy by portraying her as a normal human being surrounded by an inhuman paparazzi), is elated that her "children" have come to see her and appears to come out of her depression for a brief moment. Once she realizes that they are not her kids, however, she falls in deeper than before. The boys tell Butters to get next to her, but he coldly refuses. Annoyed, they request that Spears "just flash us your crotch or something." Finally overwhelmed by the constant harassment and jokes, she attempts suicide by shooting herself in the head with a shotgun. The boys are shocked: both Cartman and Butters run away, the latter accusing them of killing her, and Stan and Kyle stand staring in the suite until security comes by.

Miraculously, Spears survives, but she is missing her head above the lower jaw. Guilt-ridden, Kyle and Stan visit her in hospital to apologize, telling themselves that they should have left her alone, just as Butters advised. When her manager shows up, he stuns the boys by saying "First you shaved your head, and now this!" When one of the paparazzi breaks through the window, Spears's manager manages to sneak her and the boys out the back into his car, but the paparazzi chases them in a style reminiscent of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". They escape to her recording studio, where she is made to record a comeback song, although Stan and Kyle insist that this will only make matters worse. She later performs at the MTV Video Music Awards, where the crowd nitpicks at her "flaws". Stan and Kyle seem to be the only people who notice she is missing 2/3 of her head (one critic says she's obviously lip-syncing her songs and Stan disgustedly says "She doesn't have any lips!") and are finally sympathetic to her wretched condition.

The boys decide that they need to help Britney and devise a plan to take her to the North Pole by train to escape from it all. Kyle diverts the paparazzi by switching hats with Spears and eventually confronts them for abusing her, pointing out that she is no longer in any condition to handle it and that she might die. To Kyle's horror, they explain that she "has to die" and begin singing in loud semi-Latin chanting, reminiscent of the theme from "The Omen".

A narrator announces Stan's mission to bring Britney to the North Pole (in the voice of Jimmy Durante "ala" "Frosty the Snowman"). The train engineer notices Spears on his train — he has a picture of a camel's toe which is supposed to resemble her cameltoe — and stops at a village site where the paparazzi, villagers and Kyle are waiting.

The villagers explain to the boys that ritual human sacrifice is needed for a good corn harvest but that, in modern, more civilized times, people prefer to drive their sacrifices to suicide rather than stoning them to death. The crowd overwhelms Spears and proceeds to somehow photograph her to death, leaving Stan and Kyle in shock. This segment of the episode is especially tied to Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery", a story about the selection and stoning of a sacrifice for a better harvest season.

Months later, South Park residents comment on the good corn harvest while at the supermarket. A newsflash appears on TV, informing the townspeople that Miley Cyrus (star of "Hannah Montana") is quickly becoming a major superstar. The shoppers in the supermarket see her as their next target and begin singing in Latin again. Stan and Kyle give up reasoning with them and reluctantly join in the singing.

Other South Park References

* Almost all of the crowd when Britney is photographed to death are minor one-off characters from other episodes rather than "random" villagers, good examples are Ms. Streeble from "Toilet Paper", the camp advisers from "Cartman Sucks" and Thomas' mother from "Le Petit Tourette", just to name a few. Also, Dr. Mephisto, who made his final speaking role in Cartman Joins NAMBLA and rarely appeared since, Officer Barbrady, who almost never appears, are seen , and the country family from little House on the Prairie seen in Cartoon Wars Part I.

* Most of the celebrities in the audience of Britney's MTV performance have previously appeared on South Park, such as Paris Hilton, Puff Daddy, Radiohead, and Will Smith who were featured in Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset, Douche and Turd, Scott Tenorman Must Die and Here Comes the Neighborhood, respectively.

* The same chanting of the townspeople can be heard in the episode "Damien", whenever there is a close up of Damien, Satan's son.

* The chanting of "rectus dominus" is used as a (poor) translation into Latin of the term "ass master", a common insult used in earlier episodes of the show.

External links

[http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/164365 Full Episode on South Park Studios]