Mariah Carey has been through enough ups and downs in the course of her career to make her a role model for Britney Spears. Admittedly, she never sank to Britney’s level, but her career started tanking in a big way back in 2001 with the release of Glitter. The utter, spectacular failure of Glitter could be ascribed to many factors”’Mariah”’s zombified performance, her paleo-Federline love interest, the awful direction and pacing, lousy production values, you name it”’but it was without a doubt the kind of movie that destroys careers. (Just check out the viewer comments if you don”’t believe me.) Now, A Socialite’s Life notes that Mariah has her own predictably lamebrained theory. In her upcoming Playboy interview, Mariah looks back on Glitter and says:

I try to avoid it. Actually, I don’t mind it. There are moments that make me laugh, and I don’t care….Glitter was such a bomb, but no one ever pointed out that it came out around September 11, 2001.

Uh huh. So Glitter, unbeknownst to Mariah, was actually part of a many-faceted campaign to break the American spirit. Of course, there are those with different theories. Flick Filosopher, for instance, argued that releasing Glitter in September 2001 was actually an heroic act of self-sacrifice by Mimi:

Truly, it must be Great Patriotism on Carey’s part, that she engineered the withholding of Glitter till now, when we all would need reminding that there were other dark times our nation has weathered, and come through stronger.

Personally, I was one of dozens of people who actually bought tickets to see Glitter in the theatre, and I incline toward the latter view. Glitter transcended the merely awful and took you to places you didn”’t know existed. I laughed, I cried, I dozed off for a while and then experienced other emotions. It was an amazing two hours. Not that I”’d ever see it again. No-sirree-bob-cat-tail.