How Britney Spears documentaries reveal American obsession – the Hollywood reporter

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In 2006, Britney Spears appeared on Dateline with now disgraced TV presenter Matt Lauer. The emotional interview, which is strange to watch 15 years later, was presented to the public as an opportunity for Spears, who had suffered at the hands of parasitic media, to, in Lauer’s words, “set the record straight. time”. Yet the broad conversation never strayed far enough from the headlines and photographs, which she repeatedly calls trash, to give her a chance to do so.

At one point in the interview, Lauer asks Spears about the media frenzy surrounding the infamous photo of her first child sitting on her lap while in the driver’s seat of her car. “It’s not like ‘Did Britney record a bad song?’ “Is Britney wearing the wrong outfit?” “Is Britney in a bad marriage?” “Lauer said of the headlines that responded to the photo days after it was taken. “It’s ‘Is Britney a bad mother?’ Spears sits patiently, occasionally punctuating Lauer’s recitation with a heard “Mm-hmm”. At the end of her list of press questions about Spears, the pop star replies, with a weary smile, “This is America for you.”

That succinct, insightful statement takes on new meaning these days, on the heels of a handful of documentaries about Spears and the tutelage she’s struggling to be freed from. Divergent in their views and quality, Netflix’s Britney vs. Spears and FX / Hulu’s Controlling Britney Spears (a follow-up to Framing Britney Spears from February) reflect this country’s unaltered obsession with the Princess of Pop. The investigative documents were released in the days leading up to Spears’ guardianship hearing on September 29, when a judge removed his father, Jamie, as the keeper of his estate. Yet their timing indicates the complicated and distressing relationship between Spears and the media.

Spears has always been a subject of American fascination. The blonde singer with light brown eyes and an accent reminiscent of her rural Louisiana roots grew up under the nation’s watchful eyes. From his days at the Mickey Mouse Club to his promotional tours at the mall, the country seemed to adopt him as a daughter, little sister, niece and friend. She had an ambitious coldness in her and managed to balance being both a vision of white innocence and a sultry sex icon. This duality didn’t make everyone comfortable – and wasn’t that always the problem, everyone’s comfort? As a result, Spears was constantly verbally assaulted for her image, her body, her character. She was always too much, never enough.

The framing of Britney Spears and her sequel, Controlling Britney Spears – which is part of the New York Times Presents series on FX and Hulu, and was directed by Samantha Stark – structure the pop singer’s story against the backdrop of misogyny. she was confronted with, the #MeToo era and contemporary media more aware of her role and her complicity in her loss.

The framing opens with footage from Spears fans and the #FreeBritney movement, which has made it possible to increasingly examine the details of his tutelage. Journalists and Times critics contextualize its rise, explaining the role it played in the cultural imagination and the factors that contributed to its downfall. There are mentions of the paparazzi and damning interviews that show just how inadequate the media attention has been. But for anyone sensitive to the destructive role of posts in Spears’ life, those thanks, which aren’t excuses, might not seem like enough. This first installment includes interviews with her exuberant but firm assistant Felicia Culotta and people who worked with Spears, all insisting that, contrary to popular belief at the time, the singer still had creative control and financial from it. life.

The second part of the Times investigation, Controlling Britney Spears, is a harder look at the intense surveillance that Spears was and is under. He focuses on Black Box Security, the company hired to protect (and monitor) it, and TriStar Sports & Entertainment, Spears’ business management team. Most of the revelations in this second documentary come from Spears’ wardrobe boss Tish Yates, tour director Dan George, and Alex Vlasov, former executive assistant and cybersecurity manager for Black Box. Their testimony focuses less on Britney herself and more on the people who work to control her. It’s a tightly crafted documentary with a straightforward approach to the case.

Britney vs. Spears tells a story that is just as likeable to Spears, but it takes a different approach. It’s less subjective than the FX and Hulu offerings and has real crime documentary quality. Documentary filmmaker Erin Lee Carr (Mommy Dead and Dearest, How to Fix a Drug Scandal) tells a now-familiar story of Spears’ rise to pop stardom and the isolating and unsettling nature of his tutelage.

The documentary, which premiered September 28 on Netflix, suffers mainly from terrible timing. Coming after the two FX and Hulu documentaries and a CNN special that aired on September 26, it seems a bit of a stretch. Still, Carr, who appears onscreen with reporter Jenny Eliscu to talk about the Spears case, clearly cares about Spears to the extent that those of us who have seen her grow up and consider ourselves fans do. . The duo’s attempts to show their own investigative process – including a snippet of them uploading files sent by an anonymous source – can seem clunky and less than rigorous at times, but it’s sincere. The most confusing aspect of Britney vs Spears is how much it highlights the voices of former manager Sam Lutfi and ex-boyfriend Adnan Ghalib, whose roles in the star’s life have been the subject of. scrutiny.

If these documentaries reveal anything, it’s that the obsession with understanding Spears and following the smallest details of his life hasn’t abated, and in fact feels more hopeless than ever. Is the media really trying to hear Spears, to see her as a person, or are these companies just a way to reshape her narrative for a different market and generation? The metric used to rank these projects – based on the interest of the revelations or the liking of the portrayal – also seems flawed when we consider them alongside the role the collective viewer has played in Spears’ life up to this point. point.

At the start of this Dateline interview, Spears told Lauer, “My security, my privacy and my respect are three things that I think are trying to get taken away from me right now.” It’s a sentiment that, unfortunately, still rings true.

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