I am not someone who has an active interest in the personal lives of celebrities. Even my favourite actors or musicians I often don’t keep up with their news regarding new films or albums most of the time, let alone anything they do in their personal lives. So, this fascination people have with celeb gossip is something I’ve always found alien. Why do you find it so interesting to know what someone’s eating for dinner or what’s in someone’s rubbish bins? Where does this incessant need to know what someone is doing every second of every day come from?
I have never been a massive Britney Spears fan either. I enjoy some of her early stuff but she's never been an artist I have actively sought out any material from. The height of my appreciation for the artist came when I was probably around five years old when my older sister was very much into Britney. We would sing her songs and make up little dance numbers to them sometimes. I don’t remember much of it, but I was certainly aware of who Britney was and that I liked dancing with my sister to her songs. What happened to Britney in the years that followed is also something I didn’t really keep up with, either because I was too young to understand, or I just generally didn’t care. But recently the documentary ‘Framing Britney Spears’ has reignited the Britney phenomena and opened my eyes into just what has happened to her in the years since her breakout success as the popstar girl next door.
The New York Times documentary Framing Britney Spears chronicles the life of Britney from her pre-teen years performing in local choirs and talent shows of her home state Alabama, through her peak career years during her late teens, her fall from grace during the mid 00’s, and her more recent problems surrounding her relationship with her father and the legal issues surrounding her conservatorship.
It is told through accounts given by people who were close with Britney prior to her conservatorship, lawyers who have represented Britney or her father James, members of the paparazzi who played a key role in her downfall, and loyal fans who have reignited interest in Britney’s struggles through the recent #FreeBritney movement.
I have never been a massive Britney Spears fan either. I enjoy some of her early stuff but she's never been an artist I have actively sought out any material from. The height of my appreciation for the artist came when I was probably around five years old when my older sister was very much into Britney. We would sing her songs and make up little dance numbers to them sometimes. I don’t remember much of it, but I was certainly aware of who Britney was and that I liked dancing with my sister to her songs. What happened to Britney in the years that followed is also something I didn’t really keep up with, either because I was too young to understand, or I just generally didn’t care. But recently the documentary ‘Framing Britney Spears’ has reignited the Britney phenomena and opened my eyes into just what has happened to her in the years since her breakout success as the popstar girl next door.
The New York Times documentary Framing Britney Spears chronicles the life of Britney from her pre-teen years performing in local choirs and talent shows of her home state Alabama, through her peak career years during her late teens, her fall from grace during the mid 00’s, and her more recent problems surrounding her relationship with her father and the legal issues surrounding her conservatorship.
It is told through accounts given by people who were close with Britney prior to her conservatorship, lawyers who have represented Britney or her father James, members of the paparazzi who played a key role in her downfall, and loyal fans who have reignited interest in Britney’s struggles through the recent #FreeBritney movement.
To say the argument is skewed in favour of painting her father and those in control of Britney’s life and estate as the villains of this story is an understatement. But then again when putting two and two together it’s difficult to see it any other way. The difficulty with this documentary is that almost nobody closely involved with Britney currently or in the last few years came forward to be a part of the documentary, and it’s up for debate as to whether Britney was even made aware of the fact that the documentary makers had asked for her to be a part of it. As a result, the vast majority of opinions you hear are those saying that Britney is unhappy, in danger, and in need of rescue. There’s rarely a counter argument to this made throughout the documentary.
Ordinarily this type of bias would make a documentary seem somewhat illegitimate, but Framing Britney Spears does what it can to provide all the visual evidence it can in a context that feels impartial. So, whilst the interviewees may mostly share the same opinion, the viewer is ultimately still able to draw their own conclusions on the matter.
How do I feel about Framing Britney Spears then? Personally, I feel the film is excellently constructed and tries to present as many points of view on the matter as it possibly can. Despite the fact that the vast majority of people who came forward to participate in the documentary share the same opinion, that really only strengthens the argument that there is something wrong and more needs to be done to help this vulnerable woman.
The documentary forces viewers to face the ugly truth of how we are all responsible for what has happened to Britney Spears in some capacity. The documentary spotlights how inherently misogynist social structures allowed a young woman to be both sexually exploited in a way that was completely out of her control, and then shamed for having that happen to her. It shows how society perpetuating negative attitudes towards mental health allowed Britney’s sanity to be slowly chipped away until she eventually crumbled under the pressure of being shamed for everything she ever did. It shows how a broken legal system can allow a man who is clearly unable to support himself, is able to be granted the right to govern how a woman is able to live her life and how her money is handled; and then how much more broken a system can be that when that woman tries to appeal it she is denied because she is seen as not mentally stable enough to look after herself despite never being given the legal ability to do so.
Ordinarily this type of bias would make a documentary seem somewhat illegitimate, but Framing Britney Spears does what it can to provide all the visual evidence it can in a context that feels impartial. So, whilst the interviewees may mostly share the same opinion, the viewer is ultimately still able to draw their own conclusions on the matter.
How do I feel about Framing Britney Spears then? Personally, I feel the film is excellently constructed and tries to present as many points of view on the matter as it possibly can. Despite the fact that the vast majority of people who came forward to participate in the documentary share the same opinion, that really only strengthens the argument that there is something wrong and more needs to be done to help this vulnerable woman.
The documentary forces viewers to face the ugly truth of how we are all responsible for what has happened to Britney Spears in some capacity. The documentary spotlights how inherently misogynist social structures allowed a young woman to be both sexually exploited in a way that was completely out of her control, and then shamed for having that happen to her. It shows how society perpetuating negative attitudes towards mental health allowed Britney’s sanity to be slowly chipped away until she eventually crumbled under the pressure of being shamed for everything she ever did. It shows how a broken legal system can allow a man who is clearly unable to support himself, is able to be granted the right to govern how a woman is able to live her life and how her money is handled; and then how much more broken a system can be that when that woman tries to appeal it she is denied because she is seen as not mentally stable enough to look after herself despite never being given the legal ability to do so.
The part that angered me the most was basically anything that celebrity videographer Daniel Ramos said. Ramos was one of the key paparazzo to chronicle Britney’s decline in mental state by agitating her and provoking her on a daily basis. I’ve never liked celebrity paparazzi anyway, the profession to me is most easily viewed as a pack of vultures. But Ramos takes this one step further by making himself out to be the victim of all this because the money was just too good to not do it. This man literally justifies destroying a woman’s life by saying that financially it didn’t make sense not to.
I’m going to throw my hat into the ring of the whole Justin Timberlake situation too. Now whilst I am not overly well versed on what happened I am going to base this judgement off of what the documentary presents. Recently Timberlake has been villainised on social media because of what he did to Britney. I would personally argue that from what the documentary showed he didn’t really do anything, and instead negative connotations were placed onto what he was saying or doing by the media. Whilst he said some things that clashed with Britney’s ‘good girl’ image, he never slandered her, nor did he make her out to be a bad person in what they showed. All those things were attributed to what he said by the press, Timberlake fans, and by Britney fans. Obviously, I may not have all the facts, but based off what the documentary shows (which a lot of online discourse at the moment is focused on) I don’t feel like Justin was the cause of Britney’s downfall, but instead what everybody else attributed to Justin’s words and actions were what started the rapid decline of her mental health.
I came away from Framing Britney Spears ashamed and angry that we as a society have allowed this to happen to someone and allowed our social structures and legal systems to be so fundamentally broken that it has destroyed not only one woman’s life, but the lives of those who love her too. It has opened my eyes to just how cruel and abusive the celebrity machine can be at times, and how damaging that can be to someone’s mental health. It has also made me aware of the great effort that is now going into retrospectively evaluating what happened and trying to make right the injustices that have happened. We can never take back what we allowed to happen to Britney, but we can try to make sure that the rest of her life is better and that it never happens to anyone else. Framing Britney Spears is essential viewing whether you are a fan of her or not, there's a lot to be learned about common human decency from this expertly crafted documentary.
I’m going to throw my hat into the ring of the whole Justin Timberlake situation too. Now whilst I am not overly well versed on what happened I am going to base this judgement off of what the documentary presents. Recently Timberlake has been villainised on social media because of what he did to Britney. I would personally argue that from what the documentary showed he didn’t really do anything, and instead negative connotations were placed onto what he was saying or doing by the media. Whilst he said some things that clashed with Britney’s ‘good girl’ image, he never slandered her, nor did he make her out to be a bad person in what they showed. All those things were attributed to what he said by the press, Timberlake fans, and by Britney fans. Obviously, I may not have all the facts, but based off what the documentary shows (which a lot of online discourse at the moment is focused on) I don’t feel like Justin was the cause of Britney’s downfall, but instead what everybody else attributed to Justin’s words and actions were what started the rapid decline of her mental health.
I came away from Framing Britney Spears ashamed and angry that we as a society have allowed this to happen to someone and allowed our social structures and legal systems to be so fundamentally broken that it has destroyed not only one woman’s life, but the lives of those who love her too. It has opened my eyes to just how cruel and abusive the celebrity machine can be at times, and how damaging that can be to someone’s mental health. It has also made me aware of the great effort that is now going into retrospectively evaluating what happened and trying to make right the injustices that have happened. We can never take back what we allowed to happen to Britney, but we can try to make sure that the rest of her life is better and that it never happens to anyone else. Framing Britney Spears is essential viewing whether you are a fan of her or not, there's a lot to be learned about common human decency from this expertly crafted documentary.