Does Framing Britney Spears restore the pop star’s agency or undermine it?
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The latest installment of The New York Times Presents, a series of stand-alone documentaries produced by the Times staff, centers on Britney Spears, whose pop stardom has at times almost been eclipsed by personal drama and familial strife. Framing Britney Spears revisits the Oops… I Did It Again and Circus artist’s rise to fame, from charming on The Mickey Mouse Club to holding her own in the boys’ club that was early 2000s pop music. In those days, “Girls didn’t sell,” as one talking head observes. But Spears achieved a level of commercial success that’s still rarely seen—she became the Princess Of Pop, selling out tours and garnering legions of fans, all while maintaining a carefully cultivated image.
When the public breakups and breakdowns began, that image crumbled and the same tabloid photographers and reporters who once strove to capture Spears at her best were now even more driven to document her at her lowest. Framing Britney Spears explores that shift as well, in addition to the conservatorship that Spears has lived under for 14 years and the #FreeBritney movement born on social media. The documentary, directed by Samantha Stark, is full of familiar headlines—including nods to Spears’ relationship with and breakup from Justin Timberlake—and casual yet dismaying admissions that the singer’s privacy would never be respected while her personal struggles remained good for tabloid business.
Framing Britney Spears acknowledges intrusive paparazzi and directors of photographers at magazines. But as A.V. Club staffers and Britney fans Danette Chavez and Shannon Miller watched the documentary, they couldn’t help but wonder whether this investigative work was following suit. So they hashed out their feelings about the documentary and the questions it raises in this latest Crosstalk.
Shannon Miller: Danette, when we last connected over a different pop culture paragon, you were kind enough to kick things off with a well-received “whistle note.” Considering that we’re getting ourselves into some serious Britney Spears chat today, do you mind if I start with a spirited, hopefully as iconic, “HnnnYeaAah?”
Danette Chavez: I think we’d all be delighted to hear a “HnnnYeaAah.” In fact, “Gimme More.”
SM: It’s pretty wild to think about the Princess Of Pop and her overwhelming imprint on pop culture over the past two decades—longer than that, if you were a Mickey Mouse Club fan. Her earlier work doubles as one of the defining soundtracks of the millennium. Even if you aren’t the most devoted Britney fan, it would be very difficult to not react in some fashion to a “…Baby, One More Time” or “Oops!… I Did It Again” reference. They’re just moments that are part of this universally shared pop culture lexicon now. Do you have a quintessential Britney track that never fails to satisfy?
DC: I wish I could at least strive for a deep cut here, but if I’m going with my gut, it’s “Oops!… I Did It Again.” As someone who was the target demographic for both Titanic and Spears’ sophomore album (also called Oops!… I Did It Again) upon their respective releases in 1997 and 2000, there was just no escaping that song or that video homage or that dance. Which isn’t to say that I haven’t dug into Spears’ catalog: “Piece Of Me” and “Work, Bitch” are always in rotation, and on speakers, no less (no earbuds necessary when working from home). And I got a kick out of RuPaul’s Drag Race’s recent nod to the pop princess in a lip sync to “If U Seek Amy” (a song title that took me far too long to grasp). But “Oops!… I Did It Again” is downright transportive for me, taking me back to the days of frosted tips, metallic eye makeup, and Spears’ pop dominance.
What’s your Britney go-to? Please don’t let me be the last to know. (Yes, I plan to keep doing this.) And did you cue up Spears tracks to prepare for or accompany your watch of the “Framing Britney Spears” installment of The New York Times Presents?
SM: My go-to track is easily “Inside Out,” a sultry gift off of her 2011 album, Femme Fatale. I remember allowing the song to loop for a while after first listening to it and thinking, “Oh, yeah, she’s absolutely back.” How do you not feel unflinchingly sexy when it pops up on your YouTube autoplay? It’s a given!
I actually did not listen to anything in preparation for this documentary. I hope you don’t hold it against met. (It took me entirely too long to land on that. I don’t know how you do it, Chavez.) Honestly, I’m not sure that anything could have suitably prepared me for those 75 minutes. It’s one thing to tender a vague recollection of the many, many sides of the media’s ongoing relationship with Spears. It’s an entirely different experience to string these moments together decades later in a comprehensive timeline from the halcyon days of her debut to now, when we are only just beginning to grasp the details of her conservatorship—which was originally overseen solely by her father, Jamie Spears—and the resulting #FreeBritney movement.
Admittedly, I’m not even sure where to begin when discussing this doc. It does a pretty astonishing job illustrating how Spears’ outward image transitioned from the carefully crafted, folksy girl to a woman deemed unable to take care of herself. I think the most resonant takeaway for me was just how involved she was in her brand early on. Back in the day, I don’t think there was enough media emphasis on how meticulous she was about her performances, her contracts, and the gigs that she approved. And based on the account from Adam Streisand, a lawyer who she sought to assist with the case against her father, she tried to maintain some level of autonomy even during the conservatorship process.
DC: This is the kind of thing that can be difficult to review, partially because so much of this information, including Spears’ marriage to Kevin Federline and the much-documented breakdown in a hair salon, has been readily available for years. You have to wonder, aside from a deep dive into the fan-led #FreeBritney movement, what else director/producer Samantha Stark could uncover. But seeing it all in the aggregate—Spears’ breakup with Justin Timberlake, her abysmal treatment by the paparazzi and even her own family—is a discomfiting reminder of how this culture chews up and spits out its idols. And, not to diminish what she went through, but can you imagine how much worse it would have been for Spears had she not been a pretty, young white woman? Despite being a survivor, Megan Thee Stallion has been under just as much scrutiny as her alleged attacker Tory Lanez. She even felt she had to show evidence of her gunshot injury.
As you noted earlier, we’ve discussed the savviness of embattled pop stars in the past, and how and why some people might refuse to acknowledge their shrewdness. That seems to have always been the case with Britney Spears, whose initial image—or “framing,” as the documentary puts it—was pure Lolita. The public opinion was that Spears was just going along with things, or not even fully aware of how “hit me, baby, one more time” or “not that innocent” would be interpreted. Just look at this MadTV parody of Spears:
As portrayed by Nicole Sullivan, Spears is manipulated by her family and leered at by handlers. On its surface, the sketch is almost sympathetic of Spears’ plight—she’s just a teen, caught up in the plans and desires of others. But, much like the Lifetime film Britney Ever After, it belies just how self-aware Spears has always been. I don’t mean that she was overly calculating or anything, but Spears knew or learned how to walk the fine line between desirable and attainable, all while incorporating her own vision for her career.
SM: It’s interesting, that sketch first aired in September of 1999, not long after her debut. It’s been at least 19 years since I’ve watched this clip. And yet, I can still remember that parody word for word, as if it’s been on loop ever since. It’s a pretty potent example of how various sectors of media have regarded Spears as a character ripe for comedy since the very beginning, an instantly memeable presence before we even had the language to describe a sensation as “memeable” or “viral.” What’s more, that comedy was largely rooted in the seriously uncomfortable aspects of her life, whether we’re referring to how she was oversexualized from the moment she stepped onto the scene, her custody battle with Federline, or the breakdown of her relationship with Timberlake. I promise I do not intend to let him overshadow this discussion, but, my god, what a regrettable, opportunistic, sour footnote he’s voluntarily become in all this.
DC: Once again, I am reminded of the miscarriage of justice that led Timberlake to becoming a thing and left JC Chasez mostly out in the cold.
SM: May we never forget it.
In any case, I wish Stark had focused more on how these widely memed images have contributed to a collective failure to take her various pitfalls seriously. “If Britney can survive 2007, you can survive today” is often peddled as a fun, motivational nugget fit for T-shirts and coffee mugs—it’s truly its own Etsy subgenre at this point—but if you were present online at all during the past decade, you more than likely associate the phrase with a specific image of a bald, fiery Britney—often unfairly characterized as “feral” or, the ableist favorite, “unhinged”—defending herself against the paparazzi that followed her without her consent (a detail that videographer Daniel Ramos, who took the famous photos that night, revealed with a startling lack of empathy or self-awareness). It’s a widely embraced joke with insidious origins, and it’s probably the most popular Britney-related quip out of many. Even fans who ardently defend Spears to the public—like Chris Crocker, whose path to fame was initially paved by his recorded “Leave Britney alone” plea—are the subject of ridicule in certain pockets of the internet. Internet culture and parody have played a significant role in all of this, and I’m not sure that there was enough focus on that for a documentary that was meant to address her public framing.
Speaking of missing context, Danette, how did you feel about the absence of the Spearses in Framing Britney Spears? It stirred some memories of HBO’s Leaving Neverland in how it left out some perspective, I think. The only difference was, while Leaving Neverland had an abundance of personal accounts and not enough medical context, Framing Britney Spears seemed to accrue a generous stockpile of expert insight and lacked the really intimate points from the key players (though the episode did note that an attempt to invite Britney and the family was made).
DC: I’m not surprised that Spears’ family members declined to participate and, judging from the footage of old interviews with Bryan Spears, Britney’s brother, I think it’s safe to say they wouldn’t have brought much to the documentary. Her family members are just as beholden to their own self-made narratives: Her father will always see himself as a protector and not an opportunist. Her mother, Lynn, is revealed in the final moments of the documentary to have finally spoken up on Britney’s behalf in the conservatorship proceedings, which is probably more beneficial to her image than being scrutinized by a journalist. (Still, it would have been kind of cathartic to watch them squirm on camera, no?)
But in terms of the documentary’s other shortcomings, I wish Stark had pushed back on Ramos’ claims that Spears never truly wanted to be left alone by the paparazzi. That exchange is especially damning when juxtaposed with Spears’ tense Today interview with Matt Lauer, where she grimace-winces when contemplating what it would be like to have her privacy respected. Now, flashing cameras have long been an occupational hazard for any kind of public figure, let alone a platinum-selling pop artist. And, as Ramos notes, there is a kind of symbiotic relationship there—coverage bolsters reputation, which in turn demands more coverage. It’s a business. For people like Brittain Stone—the photography director at Us Weekly when “candid” shots, as he puts it in the documentary, became the order of the day—it was big business. As the tabloid press grew here in the U.S., million-dollar price tags were placed on photo spreads, whether the images were being shopped around by photographers or the rights were being auctioned off by public figures. Perhaps even more disheartening is the reality that Spears’ conservatorship—we learn her estate is worth $60 million, and those funds are used to pay for lawyers on both sides of the argument—is being treated like a business by the people who are supposed to be looking out for her.
Which brings me back to the point you made earlier, Shannon, about your ambivalence in approaching the documentary. Outside of putting the dangers of conservatorship in the spotlight, is this project helping or hindering Spears? Is the Framing Britney Spears team, themselves journalists, just continuing the tradition of benefitting off her personal tragedies?
SM: That’s the big question: Who does this help? To its credit, it’s a convenient primer for those like me who felt a little lost with the #FreeBritney campaign or, like you touched on, the potential slippery slope of this kind of restrictive guardianship. But more than anything, I think it emphasized this pervasive lack of accountability when it comes to how everyone contributed to this extremely difficult moment in the icon’s life, which isn’t particularly enlightening or useful unless it manages to somehow shift the legal parameters working against her.
DC: Framing Britney Spears concludes with the news that, while her father is no longer the sole conservator of her estate (he’s temporarily stepped down as her conservator of person), Spears remains a conservatee. I’d never hold a lack of closure or tidy ending against a documentary, because they’re often filmed and produced in the midst of ongoing events. But I don’t think Framing Britney Spears ever really accomplishes what it sets out to do. The double entendre of the title speaks to multiple intentions: Is the Times’ documentary suggesting Spears was “framed” in the sense that she was set up by loved ones or a dehumanizing legal system to lose her rights? Or is the intent to frame the singer in a new context, one that restores the agency that has been lost in all the breathless and unseemly reportage? That’s never fully established by the end of the 75-minute runtime. Instead, Framing Britney Spears is caught in the same liminal state—“not that innocent,” “not a girl, not yet a woman”—that its world-famous subject has had to contend with for much of her life.
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People on Twitter are freaking out over the revelation that she wanted to see her sons and was prevented from doing so on the day that she had her infamous 2007 meltdown, to which my reply is that if she was being that manic, Kevin Federline was absolutely correct to keep them from her that day. The press were absolute monstrous villains to her and should be treated as such, but Federline deserves no flak whatsoever for his decisions as a father.
I never got the hate for him, unless there’s something I don’t know about. He’s a harmless garden variety loser. He just happened to be around when Britney finally felt the burnout and started ditching out on stuff. I think people blame him for the Onyx Hotel fiasco, during which Britney had a minor injury but also just didn’t want to tour.
Not sure about Federline, but I don’t get this article’s hate for Timberlake. “what a regrettable, opportunistic, sour footnote he’s voluntarily become in all this.”“I am reminded of the miscarriage of justice that led Timberlake to becoming a thing and left JC Chasez mostly out in the cold.”I am too old to be knowledgeable about the topic, but I was always under the impression that Justin Timberlake was considered a talented performer who earned his success. Am I missing something?
Justin is just a douche. Every few years he’ll get caught up in some unambiguously racist or sexist mini scandal. However, vis a vis the Britney thing, she’s the one who cheated on him. She’s not the victim there. Maybe Justin shouldn’t have told the world about it (the Cry Me a River video) but I don’t defend cheaters when the genders are reversed so IMO it’s a pretty stale talking point. As for JC…he had the stronger voice and more interesting musical sensibilities. Listen to his single “Blowin’ Me Up.” With Nsync’s third album it was clear that people behind the scenes were pushing Justin as the one most likely to have solo success, probably because he was young and non threatening. His voice was agile but the tone itself wasn’t pleasant. The Nsync video for “Gone” is really telling. It’s from their last album and you can really see what their label was trying to do with him. Plus this was at the peak of TRL. Justin and JC had their solo debuts around the same time and Justin got a much bigger push.
I saw a lot of the negative reaction to Justin going around before I got around to watching this, but the thrust of the controversy is that he made a song about her cheating on him? They never even refuted it!
There’s also the Janet debacle. I agree that it’s criminal that she bore the brunt of it, but I don’t think justin is responsible for that. At the time I remember thinking it was odd how it was spoken about as if it wasn’t a creative decision they opted into together. Justin didn’t DO anything to Janet in that performance, you know? I’m no fan of the guy but the villainization of him in these instances was stan culture gone awry.
Yeah I think I agree with that, too. I don’t know, maybe I’m misremembering the fallout of all this. I don’t really care about Justin Timberlake one way or the other, but it seemed like his role in the whole Britney Spears saga didn’t amount to much beyond some boorish comments about their sex life and the Cry Me A River video.
I think people turned it into “Justin forcefully ripped her top off” when that isn’t what happened at all, the “stripping” was planned, but there truly was a wardrobe malfunction where everything came off
JC was the better of the two, but BSB all the way….simply because they all seem to get a chance to sing, wheras NSync it was just the two of them, sometimes Chris
At the time, I remember N’Sync always having more of a defined frontman in Justin than the Backstreet Boys, who were a more balanced ensemble, ever had.
I mean, this how the video to their first single starts:
Yeah, I think BSB had all of them sing in places, especially I want it That Way, where I can’t even remember Lance or Joey ever singing, and Chris maybe once. But I also remember their names, and not really BSB.
Two words: anti vaxxerhttps://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.noise11.com/news/justin-timberlake-stands-by-jessica-biels-anti-vax-comments-20190617&ved=2ahUKEwj1j9-NgNfuAhXxQ98KHUULCFsQFjAHegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw0OZzWDVG6Qiuw0NYoXcyS7
As someone who works in healthcare, these are two words that definitely make my blood boil, so I’m glad to see it brought up as a reason to dislike JT (and his wife for lobbying with a known anti-vaxxer).
Several things others have noted, but regarding Britney there was a sense that he capitalized on their relationship after they broke up, i.e., talked about their sex life in interviews as a cheap shot, made a video suggesting she cheated on him (which may or may not have actually happened), etc.
It was pretty gross how Timberlake became The Guy Who Took Britney Spears’ Virginity *high five*.(There’s an argument to be made that Spears benefitted from the attention. She was able to leave her “Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” persona behind and go full sex bomb, which may not be the world’s best persona for one’s mental health, but is still probably superior in that regard to the sexy virgin thing. And I could even believe that Spears’ and Timberlake’s people both concocted the reveal as a way to transition both artists into more adult personae. Still, Timberlake reaped more benefits, and the larger cultural reaction to him was still gross.)
If anything, the documentary does a nice job of showcasing how incredibly creepy it was that so many grown-ass adults and “professional” journalists found it appropriate to dig around about whether a teenager and her long-distance boyfriend were doing it.
The whole focus on her sexuality was so creepy, it’s hard to tell if she and her handlers played into that with the catholic school girl image and Rolling Stone article. But people still took the initiative to write about it, and ruined her life by not ever leaving her alone.
His video for “Cry Me a River” heavily implied (and he later spoke in interviews) that Britney cheated on him.Coupled with the Janet Jackson Superbowl Halftime show, you have a male performer raising his profile at the expense of two female performers. Read into it what you will.
Nobody’s dissing Timberlake’s talent, it’s all about his behaviour.
I think JT’s blamed for throwing Britney under the bus in a song, which catapulted his popularity (though Rock your Body came out before Cry Me a River IIRC) but she also cheated on him. Maybe. She didn’t deny or confirm that. He’s also blamed for what happened to Janet Jackson, but that seemed like a genuine accident. He could’ve done more to defend her, but I honestly don’t think it would’ve done much during the mid-Bush years.
I think many people like to see Britney as an absolute victim and everyone around her is trying to hurt her. Unfortunately while she may have some bad people around her, she’s also mentally ill. Mentally ill parents seeing their kids isn’t always in the child’s best interest.
Yeah, I don’t think you have to like JT, but he also came from the exact same “exploited child star” background as Britney, so I think aside from the very, very obvious ways in which men are treated more favorably than women (this is a HUGE asterisk, I know) he deserves some of the same slack Britney gets for struggling in various ways as an adult. I actually remember John Mayer, of all people, saying in an interview when he and JT had albums coming out the same week that he only knew Timberlake a little, but that he was about as well-adjusted as could possibly be expected coming from his background in the industry. (Though another large asterisk remains for John Mayer’s judgment.)
Yeah honestly something was dreadfully wrong for them to deny custody and give the kids to him, on top of the conservatorship. But it shouldn’t be a life sentence either. I think, like, do we really know? There are also reports she’s completely fine with not having to worry about the minute details of her life.
In those days, “Girls didn’t sell,” as one talking head observes.*squints in En Vogue, Spice Girls, every Lilith Fair artist, Shania Twain, Brandy, Monica, LeAnn Rimes, Destiny’s Child…*
I’m too lazy to do the actual research on number of records sold/profit to the labels off women vs men, but that line seemed like revisionist history when I read it too.Beyonce (as a solo act), Christina Aguilera, Shakira, and Gwen Stefani were all doing pretty well back then too, if I remember it right.
I didn’t mention them since they came out roughly at the same time as or after Britney (No Doubt and Garbage absolutely count though, as their respective singers were like 95% of their marketing)
Britney Spears is objectively a better songwriter than Beyonce Knowles based on evidence. That should matter when evaluating the artistic merit of these specific names mentioned together. It’s definitely amusing to observe Beyonce fans scrambling to edit their wikipedia pages.
(1:50)
Beyonce didn’t go solo until 2003 and Aguilera’s first album came out the same time as Britney’s. And Shakira was a success on the Latin charts but didn’t really break through to the English-language market until 2 years after Baby One More Time came out.
As someone pointed out, Beyoncé’s debut solo album didn’t come out until until 2003 and compared to Britney’s first 3 albums (25 Million sales, 20M, 9M), Destiny’s Child were way behind (1.5M, 6.4M, 4.3M).
They sold but not “sold.”
Actually I’m pretty blown away by those numbers for …Baby One More Time, and Oops!… I Did It Again. You could add up all four of Destiny’s Child’s studio album sales with Beyoncé’s first 4 solo albums (Dangerously in Love: 11M, B’Day: 8M, Sasha Fierce: 8M, 4: 1.5M) and still fall short (43.8M) of what Britney’s first two sold!
If you add the rest of Beyoncé’s albums that’s still less than Spears’ first 3 albums netted. That’s crazy.
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Thanks. Reported.
Yeah, you can look to almost every era and there’s not a dearth of women making music. Some genres are better than others of course (hair metal’s a mostly dude affair, but they can have it.) It’s a lazy comment and a disservice to the ways women have encounter sexism in that industry. While many performers were women how many women worked at the labels, in artist management, at record stations, running record store chains, in the music press, booking clubs etc etc?
Hey now, Lita Ford, Vixen and…yeah, that’s pretty much it, you aren’t wrong lol
I think the point is very few of those artists, successful as they were, reached the kind of heights Britney did commercially. Up until 2000, the kind of artists that reached first-name-only level of fame were mostly guys: Elvis, Dylan, Bruce, Prince, Michael Jackson. Madonna’s about the only exception I can think of that reached the same pinnacle.
Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Shania Twain, and Mariah Carey had absolutely already reached that rarefied air. The Spice Girls didn’t have those artists’ (or Britney’s) staying power but they were just as big as Britney about a year before she blew up. Britney absolutely sold a metric ton of albums and I’m not taking that away from her for a second, but saying that she’s the first female artist to get to that level isn’t true.
Shania never really got that level of success in the pop market, though. And Janet was successful but never to the extent of her brother. Mariah I’ll grant you, maybe Whitney.
Check out Shania’s career on wiki from like 97-2002 with “Come On Over” and “UP”.She had huge pop success during that time, not just country. She was huge. From Billboard Top 100 charts to performing at the Super Bowl.
She had huge pop success for a couple of years in the late 90s. She continued to do well after that but her numbers were hardly chart-topping. And she’s never had a number one hit on the pop charts in her career. None of this is to diminish her achievements, but I do think the article’s point that it was rare for female artists to achieve the kind of mega-success Britney did is a valid one.
I mean, according to the Wiki, which cites Nielsen, her album only missed the number 1 by 3000 copies and she did reach #2 with “Youre Still The One”. And according to Wiki, only reason it wasn’t is because they didn’t make enough physical copies of the single. Like, I don’t think we can understate how successful she was just because there was always something just in front of her.
If you’re talking sales, The Woman in Me went 12× platinum, Come On Over, 21×, and Up!, 11× (and it hit #1).
The first two of those, were pre-Britney.
Right but we’re talking about success specifically in the pop market as opposed to country
no, we’re talking about the concept that “women artists don’t sell” i’d also throw in the (dixie) chicks, who were massive.
The article states that comment specifically refers to “the boys’ club that was early 2000s pop music.”
Three straight diamond albums, man. Only woman in history to do that. You can’t just diminish that because she only had a couple songs that weren’t country songs.
Nobody’s diminishing anything but the article specifically talks about success in the pop market.
Country can be pop, you realize. A country purist would argue Shania Twain isn’t “real country” and is much more of a pop artist. Put it this way: I live in New York and she was huge up here. In a state that by and large does not listen to country music.
even faith hill had some decent crossover success at that time.also: does no-one remember how ubiquitous alanis morrissette was?
No musician in history was as successful as Janet Jackson’s brother. Dude literally made the biggest album of all-time. That said, from 1989-1994 I’d wager that Janet was bigger. The Rhythm Nation-Janet (self-titled) era Janet Jackson was massive. There’s a reason Mikey brought her in as a ringer for “Scream” when he was starting to flounder.As for Shania, Come On Over was the 3rd biggest album of the 90s. And Up! was her third diamond certified album, which made her the only female artist in history to have three consecutive diamond albums.Also also, maybe Whitney?! Dude, were you not alive in 1992? (it’s cool if you weren’t but man, The Bodyguard soundtrack was so ubiquitous that it was like that Wayne’s World joke where it was sent out in the mail with packets of Tide)
I could maybe understand classing the Spice Girls as a ‘group’ and being unconvinced that solo women could be as popular, but those are 4 rock-solid counterexamples. Of them, I wouldn’t have guessed Janet was the only one without a 20M-sale album.
JLo probably deserves a slight mention, though she didn’t blow up musically until after Britney. And, of course, Selena as well; who knows how big she could have been? Her posthumous album hit #1, for example.
CHER
“Up until 2000, the kind of artists that reached first-name-only level of
fame were mostly guys: Elvis, Dylan, Bruce, Prince, Michael Jackson.
Madonna’s about the only exception I can think of that reached the same
pinnacle.”
If we’re going that far back–I can think of examples in the 1970s like Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin… For a brief time at the commercial peak of disco, Donna Summer had a record number of sales of consecutive double albums, a first, etc.
Aretha?
No, I think there is plenty of evidence that female artists have moved huge numbers in the recording industry since day one, and the point of that comment in the story is to show the kind of self-affirming sexism that music execs use to justify their own awful behaviours.(I’m about to go into infuriated rant mode — the anger that follows is not directed at you!) It’s the same in the movie industry. Remember how hard it was to get a superhero movie with a female lead or a black lead? And when Black Panther and Captain Marvel smashed the box office, people said “hey, this proves you can make a mint with a female lead or a black lead?”Well, we seem to have forgotten Samuel L. Jackson being the second-highest box office star in history. And Eddie Murphy crushing the box office repeatedly in the 1980s and 90s. And in music, the top eight recording artists in history including Madonna (pre-Britney) and Rhianna (post-Britney).The real story here is that minority and women artists have always done well if they’re talented because, well it’s not hard to figure out, customers have always preferred to pay for music and movies they like, and yet business execs have always marginalised them and pretended that people don’t buy minority work even when these same execs are writing their own performance bonus checks from the sales of these artists and know exactly how well each artist is selling, and somehow this same lie gets resurrected every 5-10 years despite abundant historical evidence that it has never been true. How many times do we still see people quoting “go woke, go broke” even after the success of Black Panther and Get Out and Captain Marvel and even shitty “woke” movies like Green Book and Driving Miss Daisy that have no business being successful and winning Best Picture?We can talk all day about who had success at what point in history, but it’s not really the point of the observation. At any given time in history there have been both hugely successful minority artists and bigots forcing themselves to believe that these minority artists either don’t exist or should be dismissed as exceptions.(Infuriated rant mode OFF)
I do not believe any Lilith Fair artist sold a tenth of the albums Britney did.
Jewel and Sarah McLachlan both had single albums that sold 15 million+. I don’t think Alanis was a Lilith Fair artist, but she also had a huge moment. None of these would have been considered pop, admittedly.I’m 35 and for everyone I know, the first album they bought was either Pieces of You or Jagged Little Pill.
Neither did any Warped Tour or Ozzfest act, but saying “Girls didn’t sell” is still a stupid statement that’s easily refuted.
sheryl crow, maybe.
The Supremes, Gladys Knight, Mahalia Jackson, Mother Maybelle Carter, Aretha Franklin, Cass Elliott….Yeah. Sure. I think.
Every Lilith Fair Artist covers it, but the 90’s had so many great artists who wrote their own songs and sang live and Britney and her ilk utterly ruined it. I feel bad for her but I’ll never say I’m nostalgic for her or her music, which has always been pretty bad, at least her older stuff. I actually enjoy some of her newer material, but it’s not exactly due to her ability to sing. Yes, the criticism had a ton of problematic slut-shaming in it, but people were PISSED at her popularity back in the early 00’s and how bubblegum pop overshadowed most other female artists for a good 10 years or so. But I also can’t blame this entirely on her, and she absolutely deserves to be out of that conservatorship, not exploited by her handlers, and harassed by the media. Yeah.
It is a statement of self-fulfilling manipulation plain and simple.
“Girls don’t sell, but if you do everything I tell you… we will be huge.”
“Girls don’t sell so shut up.”
“Girls don’t sell, unless you look a certain way.”“Girls don’t sell, which is why we won’t work with you.” Which is why they don’t sell – no recordings, no sales.
Men ARE in charge, and this is a control mechanism.I have a friend that recorded with Britney. He’s gay, and started when he was a teenager, and
even though they loved the package, and the talent, they used his being
gay to manipulate him into “not being” gay, not recording what he
wanted to record, dressing they way they wanted. Then, his album was
produced exactly like their product (my friend) was made to be and sound
like, as he was on tour in Asia, just prior to his first US album
actually being shipped (physical CDs still), they dropped him, the
record wasn’t released. He even though he was completely under their
control, and he worked, toured and recorded exhaustively, they took no
responsibility for his not being a success. Never even gave the album
the chance to sell, and as far as I know, left as broke as when he started out. Things got dicey after that. He still isn’t okay or healed.
Well said.
I don’t think there is an easy answer to any of this, but I am a firm believer that in this case the idea that her father is solely after her money is reductive. It’s extremely difficult to maintain a conservatorship without some compelling evidence. I think the reality is that we probably only know the surface of what issues she has. Her family, however, should be out of it and let independent reps manage it.
I think it’s possible that two things can be true: that Britney is mentally unwell enough to need a conservatorship and that Jamie Spears doesn’t have her best interests in mind.But I also can’t help but wonder exactly issues Britney has that she is considered stable enough for a Las Vegas residency and other demanding projects but can’t even hire her own lawyer to represent her. I do think that the early 2000s had a severe impact on her mental health and the conservatorship was needed in the moment. But now, after almost 20 years, has there been no improvement in Britney where she still can’t be trusted to do some basic things on her own (driving, holding a credit card)? Perhaps it is just the family hiding the worst parts of her mental health but when you contrast Britney’s conservatorship to that say, Amanda Bynes’ (whose family has been more public about her treatment), but it’s just another reason why the #FreeBritney movement won’t die easily.
Part of mental health treatment is having patients work if they can. It’s an important goalpost. Additionally, performing onstage for a few hours a night in the same place every day for a few months, in a show that other people planned and scheduled, isn’t taxing in terms of her mental health. Apparently she really enjoyed doing that show, and it was canceled immediately when she stopped wanting to do it. I think a lot of people just don’t know the forms that mental illness takes in real life. You can be perfectly fine in conversation, but then you lose track of time and suddenly it’s three days later, you haven’t showered or changed your clothes, the kids haven’t been fed or bathed or put on the school bus, and maybe they’ve figured out how to turn on the oven. I don’t see it as inhumane that the court would appoint someone to check on her every day and drive her to her nightly dance recital.
I wholly agree that her father should be no where near the conservatorship and it should be an independent person. Britney has requested a corporate fiduciary and that makes far more sense than a parent.Some of the aspects of the conservatorship and conservatorships in general have been misrepresented: She does have the right to obtain a lawyer to end the conservatorship if she chooses – That is CA law.While she has allegedly paid $1.1 million to in conservator fees, her estate has gone up from 28 million to 47 million during the conservatorship. If someone is stealing her money, that’s a poor way of doing it.She burned her home gym down in 2020 and her explanation of that was concerningCourt filings suggest that she is highly susceptible to coercion and medical reports were given to verify that which were not made publicAs a conservatee, she can also has the ability to petition to be allowed to do things like drive etc. She never has. The conservatorship has always included a licensed medical officialA residency is strenuous work, but it’s also routine – it’s the same show at the same time day in day out. You live in a hotel or nearby with your every need attended to.
Thank you for posting this info. It seemed pretty clear from the documentary that Spears still wants and needs a conservator. She just doesn’t want her father. So I’m confused why so many of the #FreeBritney folks think the conservatorship should be abolished completely.
I think there’s a suggestion from FreeBritney people that she has been brainwashed to think she needs it.
In conservatorships, an independent court appointed lawyer is automatically issued to a proposed conservatee whose job it is to advocate for the conservatee only, without regard for anyone else’s benefit. Britney doesn’t need petition for this herself. That lawyer has a legal duty to advocate her wishes.When a conservatorship is filed, often family members are the ones who petition the court for a proposed conservatorship and usually nominate themselves or another family member. If it moves forward, the family member is usually granted the role unless there is an objection from another interested party. By law, all immediate family members (parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and children) of the proposed conservatee have standing to object and receive all of the court filings.I feel this documentary is extraordinarily irresponsible coming from the NY Times. There is still so much that is court sealed in Britney’s case. We have no idea what illness she has and what evidence has been presented to the court to justify her decade and a half conservatorship. Either the entire court system and her entire family is in a huge conspiracy, or she is just more mentally ill than the public realizes, and the family and court want to maintain that privacy in spite of the entire hullaballoo around the #freebritney movement.
I’m more than willing to say “Yeah, there’s tension around her father, let’s get him out of it,” but I’m pretty sure that already happened? In the most recent court filing, Britney didn’t even hint at wanting it gone. She just asked that the other person be put in charge and seems to be getting that.If the family’s goals were solely to steal her money, there are 95,000 easier ways of doing it and ways that would have far less oversight. Even the ongoing custody stuff to me proves there is a lot we don’t know – Courts favor the mother. For her to still have such restrictions around when and how she sees her kids, they must know something.The number one thing I’ve seen in the court filings and statements around the conservatorship is that Britney is highly suggestible and prone to coercion because of the redacted diagnoses. If that’s the case, then it probably is a good idea for her to have less autonomy around her decisions.
Agree with you 100%. Based on the court’s actions over the years, it’s conjecture but I think we can infer that Britney endangered her kids lives at some point around 2007, which has pretty much triggered all of this. An independent medical diagnosis likely has caused some kind of indefinite conservatorship, at least until maybe her kids become adults. Maybe she’s better now, but that would be hard to prove unless she has at least 2 different independent professional reports on her health and wellbeing giving her the all clear.
And you also have to remember she checked into a “health and wellness” clinic as recently as April 2019 and burned down her home gym as recently as April 2020. She clearly still has a lot going on. Her wishes also seem to be followed – She wanted to stop performing and it was okayed. She petitioned to remove her father and that is looking to be okayed if not already settled. I can’t find examples of things she petitioned for that weren’t granted outside of attempts to change the custody arrangement which have not been.
I have been in contact with numerous working musicians with long-term drug problems. At any given moment, they can’t carry on a conversation, but they do shows just fine. As soon as they step off the stage, they’re pretty lost. I’m not saying Spears has a drug problem, but there are people who can just turn it on for a show.
I listen to/watch a lot of interviews with stand-up comedians who say similar things about stage brain. Sick with the flu? They’ll still do a 30 minute set and seem totally fine until they step off stage and yark up everything they ate in the last week. Blackout drunk? Get up for a tight 5, step off stage, fall on your face unconscious.
I can sympathize with Spears’ desire to have someone other than family be in charge. I have no idea if Spears’ father has her best interests at heart or not, but even if he does, a family-led conservatorship could so easily lead to fighting. Also, whatever your mental health issues may be, it has to be really dispiriting to have your father telling you what to do at 40 years old.
I don’t disagree. There have been some reports that Britney’s issues with her father are being caused by her mother, which could also give some credence to the coercion concept, but at the end of the day, I can see the benefits of having just a court appointed professional in charge of the conservatorship. My biggest shrug towards the father aspect of it is that people seem to think he’s profiting. The amount of fees she has paid over several years is pretty minor and in that same time her money has increased by $20 million. If you’re trying to steal money or profit, making $1 million to her $20 million seems super inefficient.
One thing we can all agree on, Fuck Justin Timberlake. Anti vaxxing, misogynistic white trash.
Glad to see this sentiment. Another reason I’ve disliked him is for his role in the backlash Janet Jackson got for the Super Bowl incident. She took pretty much all the blame and he basically skated away freely.
As the doc nicely put it he’s been slut shaming his way to the top since 1998.
His last album didn’t get critical acclaim, which gave me a feeling of schadenfreude. Now, if only people would stop putting him in movies and making him think he has an acting career.
Looking at you Tim Cook and woody allen.
I can only surmise that Tim Apple gave him this latest role as an additional favor for doing those iPhone commercials with his also annoying buddy, Jimmy Fallon, all those years ago.
Loathe as I am to say it (boy bands will be boy bands, the little weeds … ), I thought he was mighty in ‘The Social Network’, but, yes, he’s still a little weed.
He wasn’t acting in that movie.
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It’s a sad tale but Britney’s “artisitic” cred is virtually non-existent. She was a mannequin in a machine. I thought the doc was compelling but for all we know, she might be suffering from genuine mental health issues.
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Spears is the poster child for the pushback against feminism that marked the middle/late 90s. America was eager for sex kittens and boy toys again. She became a reluctant spokeswoman for the ever-popular dumb blonde. The Kardashians sealed the deal. I’m watching the doc/’investigative’ right now. If nothing else, young women should see what happens when they decide to have children in a patriarchal society – you have already relinquished half (or more) of your freedom.I feel for Spears, but I’m busy now doing what little I can to restore agency without the necessity of booty shorts and botox. Maybe someday Spears’ story will serve as a parable.
Almost every genre suffered greatly in the late 90’s/early 00’s. I think it was also a pushback against independent labels and anti-materialism. The 00’s was about selling out, big time. Rap got it just as bad as pop music
Well this documentary made me cry. I am so sorry that she did not have someone to back her up when she was so young to say that comments on her body and questions about her virginity and are inappropriate and none of your fucking business. I feel like nobody fought for her and maybe that’s still going on? I hope she has found peace in refusing to perform for now. She has given so much joy to say many people. She deserves so much more than she has received from the people who “care” for her most.
Or maybe the conservatorship /is/ her family’s way of trying to have her back? To many of us, it can seem intense and crazy that such a thing exists for someone that seems fine. But it’s very possible that beyond the media treating her poorly, she is also mentally ill and highly susceptible to coercion that puts her in danger when oversight is taken away. I think it’s easy to assume that it’s about control, but her mental illness may be more severe than we know and many court filings suggest that it is. I think it would be sadder for her to join the ranks of pop stars and child stars who meet tragic ends.
I think you’re probably right. We don’t know what we don’t know. I just wish her family had advocated more for her when she was dealing with the press at such a young age.
“That’s the big question: Who does this help?” I don’t think it was intending to help anyone, right? I thought it was informative about conservatorships, something I knew nothing about. I thought it was an excellent and sad case study of celebrity, paparazzi, misogyny, et. al. And I thought it casts Britney in a sympathetic light while also not making light of the fact that she might have a number of mental issues. One of the saddest parts of this was how childlike she appeared in her videos. At the same time, I could argue that the conservatorship didn’t allow her to grow and develop as a human being and kept her in a perpetual childlike state, which is where I’d lean. But I could also argue that her mental issues cause her to be that way and necessitate the conservatorship.Either way, I can’t imagine her mental issues are anything she wouldn’t have been able to handle if a) our obsession didn’t fuck with her so much and b) she had a support group of family or friends who truly cared for her. Regardless of whether James is only in it for the money, it’s very clear that very few people if any in the Spears clan had the ability to help her through her issues (at best), and that they likely saw her as a meal ticket (at worst) – I remember seeing an interview with her mom that was pretty disgusting back in the day too. It’s just a very sad American story.
So people are still projecting their own desires on this woman? Instead of “the public” wanting her to be some slutty virgin teen, now it’s celebrities wanting her to be another rich gal-pal at red carpet parties? She obviously blew some mental fuses that just aren’t coming back. It happens. People can’t be as perfect as we want them to be.The fact that she has any money left to her name after the past 15 years of no new material is pretty strong proof that the conservatorship was and is a pretty good idea.