You Don’t Really Care About Britney Spears
If you are still holding up celebrity culture and dismissing other victims of child-stardom, your concern may be just another fad
The New York Times has just unleashed its documentary “Framing Britney Spears,” and the Internet is up in arms. Calls to #freeBritney have spilled out across the web, and celebrities, activists, and media alike have joined in the chorus apologizing to Britney for contributing to her demise and bemoaning the misogyny that contributed to her downfall.
But how sorry can you really be for Britney’s misfortune when you’re gobbling up this information as yet another schadenfreude-y snack in an endless pantry of celebrity gossip? I haven’t yet seen hashtags circulating demanding apologies to Lindsay Lohan or Amanda Bynes, or the litany of other child stars who have been destroyed by the media. I speculate many of the same people up in arms about Britney will return soon enough to watching reality TV and Twitter feuds unravel and eat popcorn while feigning concern as the next story breaks of a child-star with an eating disorder, sex scandal or drug arrest. How much do you actually “care” about someone you don’t know when you’re still “stanning” for and lionizing people you don’t know simply because they’re wealthy and/or famous?
Lastly, while Britney has very clearly been victimized by misogyny, are you also willing to question and give the benefit of the doubt to traumatized and exploited child stars of all genders (including even the much-maligned Justin Timberlake)? If not, then your concern is not about feminism or genuine concern for human rights or even Britney Spears and her well-being; it’s about fanaticism and voyeurism.
How much of this is really about “feminism”?
When I came across the below graphic on Instagram, as someone who proudly identifies as a feminist, I couldn’t help but think of this and much of the other coverage of #freeBritney as frustratingly reductive. Is this a cycle of misogyny in the media? Or is it the familiar cycle of how we treat celebrities in general? By all means, let us discuss the specific ways that women tend to be attacked or bastardized in the media, but let’s not pretend that none of this happens to men or boys.
Take Justin Bieber, for example. Justin is another former child star who the world loves to hate. He’s had many public scandals and mental breakdowns, hinted at child molestation schemes within his industry (though he didn’t overtly say that he was victimized by them in his youth), and even has a current hit chronicling how lonely it has been to perpetually, publicly self-destruct while people gawk and feign support. One particularly unsettling verse of the song decries this phenomenon:
Everybody knows my past now
Like my house was always made of glass
And maybe that’s the price you pay
For the money and fame at an early age
And everybody saw me sick
And it felt like no one gave a shit
They criticized the things I did as an idiot kid
How much sympathy has the world had for Justin Bieber? Probably about as much as Britney Spears. Sure, Justin has more autonomy over his life, not being stuck in a legally and ethically questionable conservatorship, but he has suffered the same scrutiny and ambivalence to his patent suffering.
Justin Timberlake was also a child star. Now there are even calls from activists to have Justin Timberlake… arrested (seriously?) because when he was 21, after she cheated on him, Timberlake took to interviews and boasted that him and Britney Spears had sex and offered some lascivious details about their sex life without her consent. Reprehensible? Surely. Arrestable? I am no legal expert, but I’d say probably not. I am not particularly interested in defending the line of thinking that strips a legal adult of any accountability, but why are we forgetting that this angry ex-boy-bander was also exposed to all the exploitation and dysfunction and terror of being a sexualized child in Hollywood? Just because he “seemed” to handle it better on some conventional level, does not mean that did not also mess him up. There needs to be a better way of seeking accountability AND generating some understanding for why people behave the way they do — that is, trauma.
The likelihood that Timberlake himself experienced molestation during his childhood stardom is very high. Many child stars, both male and female, have experienced such (just as both male and female celebrities experience body shame and eating issues as a result of constant scrutiny and vitriolic criticism), though few have felt comfortable voicing their experiences for many reasons, ranging from shame and stigma to fear of retribution or ending their careers. And regardless of whether the abuse was sexual for these children, they were all still subject to disturbing abuses. Britney Spears is not the only victim. The concept of child stardom is the major culprit here.
Why do so many defenses of Britney center her financial success?
Hint: it’s because this is about feminism™ in a predominantly hyper-capitalist, #girlboss sense. By no means is Britney’s conservatorship anything other than sexist and ableist. But much of the praise and defense of Britney across the web revolves around her lucrative career accomplishments. When has financial success been a good measure of mental capacity or moral fiber? There are hordes of wealthy people who are cruel and arguably somewhat out of their minds who have inherited (Trump) or earned (Elon Musk) a lot of money. And there are people like Anthony Bourdain who was ostensibly highly successful until the very end, when he tragically succumbed to a long battle with mental illness.
The point is, stop talking about Britney’s multi-millions of dollars that she does not have access to as a justification to end her conservatorship, and stop pretending that part of what bothers you most is that someone you find “cool” or “hot” or “funny” or simply nostalgic doesn’t get to fully enjoy the hundreds of millions of dollars that no human being should probably have anyway (why does any human being need this kind of wealth?).
Recognize the hypocrisy
Perhaps most appalling about this viral #freeBritney craze is the sheer hypocrisy of it all. The documentary was a product of The New York Times, a neoliberal publication that has written countless articles about Britney Spears (not mentioned in the documentary, coincidentally), and which constantly reinforces classism and racism and sexism and celebrity culture.
Of all places, Glamour published an article about how “We’re All to Blame for What Happened to Britney Spears.” Are we? Because I would argue that fashion magazines that exist explicitly for the purpose of making women feel bad about themselves and for sexualizing teenage (child) stars are disproportionately culpable.
Yes, I do believe every person who chooses to watch reality television, consume celebrity gossip, obsessively aspire to fame and wealth, dismiss hyper-sexualization of children in the media, and excuse sexist or classist or racist comedy as “fun” or “entertainment” is culpable — which is, to an extent, most of us.
There is a vicious chicken/egg circle in media and society; we create what we want to consume, and we consume what we want to create or become. These constantly reinforce each other, and personal and collective ambivalence allows the cycle to spin out of control, pandering further to the worst parts of human nature and the most nefarious aspects of white supremacist, colonial culture.
If you want to uphold Britney’s conservatorship as an example of how women are more likely to lose autonomy for their behavior (harkening back to assertions of “hysteria” that have been used to control women throughout history), that is a valid critique and something to be rightfully aggravated about.
But stop pretending that this is about genuine concern for Britney Spears or about “compassion” and human rights concerns. There is a deeply contradictory tendency among activists is to jump behind causes like abolishing the death penalty in the name of “human rights,” while simultaneously advocating for the unilateral “canceling” of someone like Shia LaBeouf — who absolutely deserves to be held accountable for sexually abusing FKA Twigs, but who has been exposed to the same abuse from child stardom and abusive family that Britney Spears has.
Why do leftists extend compassion so selectively? Why is it only offered at the brink of existential disaster? Why can’t everyone find a way to recognize the endlessly traumatic effects of fame (especially for children) and attempt to start devaluing it? Fame is the compounded awareness or concern for someone based on a collectively imagined sense of “importance.” Stop contributing to the culture that deifies famous people. Consider what you’re consuming and why, and how it perpetuates this culture.
You probably don’t really care about Britney. Maybe there’s genuine human rights concern for the legality of her conservatorship (I am sure you’re equally concerned with disability rights outside of your favorite sexy 90’s pop star, right?). Maybe part of you once wanted to be or date Britney Spears so you are imagining yourself in her position and it makes you sad. Maybe for one reason or another, you really do genuinely care. But ultimately, if you’re most upset because you genuinely love this celebrity that you do not know because she’s a hot celebrity with fun music, well, you don’t really care.
Unless of course, you’re this guy:
