Sympathy for the Schoolgirl

When Britney Jean Spears was sixteen years old, she put on a pleated skirt and channelled an archetype: the schoolgirl, underage temptress. It was a persona Spears wore like a polyester Halloween costume throughout her first flush of fame—from her pigtails and kneesocks in the video for “. . . Baby One More Time” to her pushup bra and curly phone cord on the cover of Rolling Stone. With the release of her memoir last month, Spears joins a roll call of pop-culture figures with narratives to reclaim—and perhaps the schoolgirl, too, merits a moment of reconsideration.