It’s 2007. Britney Spears sits in the passenger seat of a car, her hand holding up her freshly shaved head. Her eyes – filled with tiredness and irritation – peer out of the windshield at the paparazzi crowding around her. In a few moments, she’ll storm out of the car, grab an umbrella, and hit it against a paparazzo’s car. It’s a moment that will end up on the cover of the Daily News the next day.
Women in the entertainment industry have always dealt with double standards, many of which were perpetuated by the media. Yet there seems to have been a period of time between the mid-1990s into the 2000s when female celebrities were treated even more harshly than usual. They were often the subject of trashy tabloids, where they were body shamed, slut shamed, and reduced to mere bimbos.
Britney is no stranger to being mobbed by flashing camera lights, nor is she unfamiliar with having all eyes on her. She’s one of the biggest pop stars of all time, with legions of fans and noteworthy performances that have made her earn the title of “The Princess of Pop.” But with all that acclaim came unrelenting criticism. Everything from her music to her body got picked apart by the media and the public. It seemed that no matter what she did, it’d be cause for controversy.
The mistreatment of Britney and fellow female celebrities by the media over the years is being reanalyzed in works like The New York Times’ documentary, “Framing Britney Spears,” and the recent release of her own memoir, The Woman in Me. It comes at a time when movements like #MeToo saw women in the public eye come forward about the abuse they faced from powerful men, who for the longest time were shamed into silence for fear of any repercussions. But even when justice is served (which isn’t often), these women still bear the burdens of men’s actions.
There seems to be a running gag that when you’re a famous woman, you’re very being is a spectacle. Your best and worst moments are the subject of entertainment. Even when you’re not the problem, you’ll somehow still be the villain. But why do we as a society find it amusing to relish in the downfall of a woman, in a way that’s so public that it’s violating? Why is a woman’s pain not taken seriously enough to the point that it’s made the butt of the joke by late night talk show hosts?
Perhaps it’s because women like Britney Spears are viewed as dangerous. By being a teen idol, she was expected to be a role model for her young, mostly female, audience. Wearing a simple crop top was deemed as “too sexy” for someone who was supposed to be America’s Sweetheart.
The worst thing she could do was grow up. Even though her outfits, performances, and music aged with her, people couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that she was becoming a young woman. The culture was so obsessed with her keeping her youthful, “good girl” image that she was constantly asked about her virginity. No one was holding men like her then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake to these standards, nor were they held accountable for the trouble they caused other women.
It’s time to stop projecting our internalized misogyny onto famous, young women and expecting them to mother the nation’s children. Putting them on a pedestal seems only to lead to objectification and dehumanization. By participating, we do not merely place unreasonable expectations on women whose sole job is to entertain, but also reveal how we view those in our everyday lives. We can do better.
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