The pop-singer’s struggles with media harassment and conservatorship
The New York Times Presents: Framing Britney Spears, a documentary available for streaming on Crave, takes viewers through the life of one of the world’s most famous pop stars. It highlights just how badly the media failed Britney Spears during some of her most formative years, essentially causing her to suffer from severe mental health problems. The documentary takes us from Spears’ rise to fame as a talented, small-town girl from Louisiana to her present-day conservatorship under her father, Jamie Spears. It begins and ends with the #FreeBritney movement, which gained momentum in 2020 as the public became more aware of Spears’ 12-year conservatorship.
The film begins by looking at Spears’ roots in the small, rural town of Kentwood, Louisiana, where she was raised by two working parents who sacrificed much to see their talented daughter succeed. One of the key interviewees is Spears’ former assistant Felicia Culotta, who was close friends with her mother, Lynne Spears, and knew Britney since she was five years old. She would act as a sort of chaperone for Spears in her early days of fame. Culotta vouched for Spears’ pure-hearted generosity and good nature, and when asked why she decided to participate in the documentary she responded, “So that we could remind people of why they fell in love with her in the first place.”
The film does a good job highlighting just how badly women are treated and exploited by the media. Watching this film was just a micro-view into the life of one woman who was severely scrutinized by the press and consumed like an object by everyday people like us. Paris Hilton’s documentary, The Real Story of Paris Hilton, falls within the same vein. I think it’s fascinating what we as a society allowed to happen just a decade ago and how much we have evolved since then. Monica Lewinsky was shamed and ostracized after being a victim of a gross misuse of power. Courtney Love was blamed for her partner’s suicide. Princess Diana’s untimely death was ultimately caused by a media circus that caused her driver to get into a car accident. Taylor Swift has been ruthlessly slut-shamed. Young women like Amanda Bynes, Lindsay Lohan, and Demi Lovato have been the butt of jokes and harassed in interviews because of their public struggles with mental health and substance use. That being said, paparazzi don’t have jobs without consumers — the film puts blame on the media and on us, as voyeurs who take in and share the latest gossip that dehumanizes and shames celebrities to an extent that we will never experience or truly understand.
The late 1990s and early 2000s were times where mental health was not talked about to the degree that it is today, and women were often harassed in interviews. One of the most sickening parts of the film was when the male host of a talent show commented on 10-year-old Spears’ “pretty eyes” and asked if she had a boyfriend — not addressing her powerhouse of a voice for a young girl, but instead limiting her to her looks and availability. As an adult, Spears often broke down crying on talk shows while interviewers grilled her about her breakups, being an unfit mother, and her lack of talent as a musician. She was asked about her breasts, her virginity, and what she did wrong to cause the disintegration of her relationship with Justin Timberlake
The documentary was truly heartbreaking as it looked at how the media hounded Spears, framing her to be a sex symbol, cheater, bad mother, and ultimately, mentally ill to the extent that she could not make decisions on her own. The degree to which the paparazzi berated her, followed her, and watched her every move is sickening. The documentary crew talked to former paparazzo Daniel Ramos who appeared to have no remorse whatsoever for following Spears while she tried to see her children, pursuing her until she lashed out, swinging an umbrella at him and his car while sporting a freshly shaven head. Ramos even appeared happy that he had egged her on enough to become that mad because those images made him a lot of money.
“That night was not a good night for her,” said Ramos, “but it was a good night for us ‘cause it was a money shot.”
The film ended by going deeper into the #FreeBritney movement, looking at her conservatorship and portraying her father, Jamie Spears, in an extremely negative light. Jamie, someone who once filed for bankruptcy himself, is accused of treating Britney as a cash-making asset, which leads me to believe he doesn’t have the best interests of her mental health in mind. One especially incriminating quote was from Kim Kaiman, Britney’s former manager, saying Jamie’s only words to her were “My daughter’s going to be so rich, she’s going to buy me a boat.”
The film explained well that a conservatorship is a legal concept in which a guardian is appointed by a judge to manage the affairs of someone who has proven to be unfit or incapable of doing so themselves; conservatorships of estate allow the conservator to make financial decisions for the conservatee, and conservatorships of person make it so the conservator is responsible for making decisions about the conservatee’s career, daily life, and medical treatment. Britney is under both types of conservatorship. The film highlighted the corruption within the legal system that allowed this conservatorship to happen and begged the questions of why does a working adult, a woman who held a residency in Vegas, need one? Why is Spears still not in control of her finances, 12 years later? And how did Jamie Spears, who was largely uninvolved in her life, end up as her conservator, despite Britney’s wishes?
Viewers were left with a lot of questions unanswered, and the film didn’t flesh out her current situation very well. It looked a little at her Instagram, which is cringe-worthy and showcasing someone who does not appear to be well, with poorly edited dance and modelling videos and the same photos of her posted dozens of times. The film’s producers interviewed people who were closely following and even made a podcast dedicated to Spears’ questionable Instagram grid, but it didn’t do much theorizing about what was actually going on. Why is her feed so weird?
Dave Holmes, an MTV VJ from 1998-2002, summarized it best when he said: “Everyone’s interpretation of what Britney is putting forth is something that they are bringing to those Instagram videos. It’s impossible to know her, so we never knew her.”
I have my own ideas of course. Perhaps because of Spears’ isolation, her mental state really is declining. Or maybe she is not the one posting on it at all; is it possible that Spears’ current boyfriend, Sam Asghari, is behind her posts? With her conservatorship controlling almost every aspect of her life, you would think that the one outlet that connects her to her fans would be stringently controlled as well. Maybe Britney is in control of her own feed, and we can really see her expressing herself and curating her image in a way she was never able to before.
Absent from the documentary were any of Spears’ family or Spears herself. There is a disclaimer at the end of the film that reads: “The New York Times attempted to reach Britney Spears directly to request her participation in this project. It is unclear if she received the requests.” Director Samantha Stark acknowledged in an interview with Entertainment Tonight that it was an ethical dilemma for her whether or not to make a film where the central person it revolves around does not participate.
There is some speculation that Spears has seen, or at least knows about, the documentary, based on her post on Feb. 9 that reflected on a performance of her single “Toxic.” The caption reads: “I’ll always love being on stage …. but I am taking the time to learn and be a normal person ….. I love simply enjoying the basics of every day life !!!! Each person has their story and their take on other people’s stories !!!! We all have so many different bright beautiful lives ????!!! Remember, no matter what we think we know about a person’s life it is nothing compared to the actual person living behind the lens ?? !!!!”
Britney’s co-conservatorship is now split between Jamie Spears and a financial company that Britney Spears hired. Britney is still fighting to get her father removed fully from the conservatorship. The next legal hearing is March 17.
Framing Britney Spears (The New York Times/Youtube)
Andrea Sadowski is working towards her BA in Global Development Studies, with a minor in anthropology and Mennonite studies. When she's not sitting in front of her computer, Andrea enjoys climbing mountains, sleeping outside, cooking delicious plant-based food, talking to animals, and dismantling the patriarchy.