Amy Ophelia Winehouse

Reading "Reviving Ophelia" for book club; many observations I agree with, much of the analysis I reject. One of Pipher's methods is a sort of therapy-by-critical-thinking, teaching girls to critically deconstruct their culture with the idea that they will then recognize and reject the destructive elements. For all my disagreements with Pipher, this was one aspect of the book I accepted, more or less.

But consider Amy Winehouse, as an NYT article did this morning. She's often paired with Britney as a pair of lissome pop Ophelias, with their self-destructive attention-seeking. But Amy Winehouse is the anti-Britney, in many ways: her songs have always been, precisely, critical deconstructions of a female-destructive culture. And it doesn't seem to have protected her from its depredations in any way.