I can't deal with these Britney Spears interviews
Mad, sad and sorry. That's how Framing Britney Spears made me feel.
Many terrible things are covered in Framing Britney Spears, the New York Times documentary on the teen pop sensation and her 12-year battle with her father over her conservatorship. But the worst stuff, in my eyes, comes from the people who really should have known better. I have some thoughts. Let’s go…
Britney Spears is performing on the variety show Star Search. It’s 1992, and she’s just 10 years old, but this incredible Kentwood school kid belts out such a powerful version of The Judds’ Love Can Build A Bridge it sounds like it should be coming from someone at least twice her age.
Afterwards, the show’s host, Ed McMahon, doesn’t comment on her performance. Instead, he says this: “I noticed last week that you have the most adorable, pretty eyes. Do you have a boyfriend?”
When Spears, who is, remember, just 10 years old, says no, McMahon replies: “How about me?”
Framing Britney Spears is a grisly, knotty, gnarly documentary put together by The New York Times. It doesn’t have big-name talking heads, or major exclusive interviews, or incredible never-before-seen footage of the pop star’s career.
About the biggest “get” is Spears’ former assistant, Felicia Culotta, who hasn’t worked with her, or talked to her, since 2017.
Instead, much of the film’s narrative is told by New York Times staff members, the publication’s editors and music critics. Liz Day, a NYT senior story editor, is listed second in the film’s cast, after Spears, on the Framing Britney Spears IMDB page.
But it doesn’t matter. Framing Britney Spears uses footage we’ve all seen a thousand times to piece together exactly what’s happened to the pop star over her career. It’s horrifically compelling, and helps explain why Spears is in the situation she’s in now - refusing to perform again until her father relinquishes her conservatorship.
Along the way, the film slams paparazzi that stalked, harassed, taunted and intimidated the pop star for years. It blasts gossip magazines for all those misleading, false, sexist and derogatory cover headlines. It condemns her dad over the conservatorship that’s still going on to this day.
It takes aim at Justin Timberlake for pedaling the narrative that Britney somehow wronged him when their relationship ended, something he’s been apologising for lately. It also picks apart news outlets that kept running endless updates about her.
But, to me, the film’s most damning footage comes from journalists and TV hosts asking things of Spears they really shouldn’t be asking. That interview with McMahon at the tender age 10 is just the first of many awful interviews Spears was forced to endure throughout her career.
Some of then send shivers down my spine.
“Everyone’s talking about it - well, your breasts,” queries Dutch TV host Ivo Niehe in an interview with Spears at the age of 17. ”What do you think about breast implants in general?”
In 2001, Australian reporter Mike Munro said this to her: “To many, you are a contradiction. On the one hand you’re a sweet, innocent virginal type. On the other hand you’re a sexy vamp in underwear.”
At the Cannes Film Festival in 2002, a journalist had the gall to ask Spears this: “Is it true you are still a virgin?”
Then there’s this 45-minute Primetime interview with Diane Sawyer from 2003. In it, the 22-year-old is asked many terrible things, like which drugs she’d taken, if she was addicted to shopping, and whether or not she liked her voice.
Then Sawyer turned to Spears’ relationship with Timberlake, which by that point had ended. “You broke his heart. You did something that caused him so much pain, so much suffering,” she said. Then she asked: “What did you do?”
These aren’t new clips. All of them have been available on YouTube for years. But the only response to them is, WTAF? Seen together, Framing Britney Spears is a damning deep dive down the fame funnel, a fever dream of celebrity worship gone horribly wrong. Like the Amy Winehouse documentary Amy, it will leave you absolutely wrecked.
It will make you feel mad, then sad, and, finally, sorry. You’ll be mad you ever picked up a copy of Us Weekly and gasped at the probably untrue headlines. You’ll be sad you ever clicked on a titillating link about Spears, or watched that TMZ footage of her attacking a car with an umbrella, and shaving her head.
And you’ll be sorry, so very, very sorry, for almost everything else you’ll see in the film. Especially those terrible interviews she had to endure.
Spears didn’t deserve any of that. I hope she’s okay. I hope she’s doing good. I really do. Her latest Instragram videos feature a lot of dancing. They’re badly edited and grainy as all hell, filmed on what seems to be an iPhone 6. She’s wearing a lot of eye shadow.
But Spears, who is 39 years old, seems happy. She seems hopeful. She seems free. After everything she’s been through, that’s got to count for something.
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