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In the early 2000s, a little girl is grocery shopping with her parents. While her parents are checking out, she looks at the magazine aisle and spots the tabloids. Plastered across various magazines are young teenage stars, their personal lives displayed for the whole world to see. A young musician gained ten pounds, and she dared to go to the beach in a bikini, and an actress was dumped by her boyfriend leading to a mental break. And then on almost every cover is the name Britney Spears. In early February 2021, the documentary Framing Britney Spears directed by Samantha Stark and produced by Jason Stallman, Sam Dolnick, and Stephanie Priess released.
This documentary covers Britney’s rise to fame and how the media would harass her throughout her career. The paparazzi would cover every second of her life without regard to privacy, leading Britney to have multiple humiliating and exposed mental breaks. This documentary forces the public to reflect on the mistreatment of Britney Spears and other young girls in the entertainment industry.
Britney Spears’ Early Career
In 1999, sixteen-year-old Britney Spears debuted her first groundbreaking single, “Baby One More Time.” Almost overnight, the popularity of this single made Britney Spears a pop-star. From the beginning, the media and tabloids swarmed Britney like vultures asking personal questions about her dating life, sex life and degrading her to only a sex object while she was still underage. In November 2003, Britney would attend an interview by ABC’s “Primetime Thursday,” where talk show host Diane Sawyer would publicly humiliate Britney Spears. Britney would be chastised for her outfit choices. Diane Sawyer would shame her, even boldly bringing to attention the former governor of Maryland’s wife Kendall Ehrlich’s statement,
“… really if I had the opportunity to shoot Britney Spears, I think I would.”
This would become common for Britney, as she would enter an interview to talk about her career and leave being objectified, shamed, and embarrassed.
Britney’s further sexualization would continue after her break-up with popular musician Justin Timberlake. To showcase gender roles, the break-up was framed by the media as “Britney’s fault,” publicly condemning her and assuming she was the sole reason for the break-up because she is a woman. Plastered all over every entertainment source were gossip of Britney’s “mess up” and “failure” for losing the beloved Justin Timberlake. Furthermore, Britney was mocked all over the media; she was portrayed as the ‘school slut,’ and Justin was portrayed as the innocent lover who had been wronged. Media poked fun of this breakup, teasing and writing things like,
“At least Justin got into Britney’s pants.”
On the Star and Buc Wild Morning Show, hosts laughed and shockingly questioned Justin,
“Did you at least Fuck Britney Spears?”
Media Pressure On Britney Spears
After a heavily published divorce with Kevin Federline and a messy battle over child custody, the paparazzi stalked every moment of Britney’s life. Fans and close friends blame paparazzi and media for the downfall of Britney’s mental health, as she began fearing the paparazzi and became visibly upset every time they showed up. In an NBC interview, Britney crying will state that all she wants is to be left alone. Paparazzi would follow her most intimate moments until in 2007, Britney would undergo a mental break, shave her head, and hit a paparazzi’s truck with an umbrella.
The media cruelly mocked her, and jokes about this mental break would be made on various television shows, magazines, and talk shows. With such heavy circumstances, this would be enough for any person to lose their sanity temporarily, yet the lack of empathy Britney received was heartbreaking. As long as it made a good story and some bucks, the tabloids would turn anything into a joke.
The mistreatment of Britney would not be unexpected as tabloids thrived off of tearing down girl celebrities. These stories and interviews would be geared for the male audience — only questioning young girl’s sex and dating lives instead of their careers. This encouraged the negative stereotypes that these girl celebrities existed solely for male pleasure and not for themselves or their careers. Not only were young stars asked personal and embarrassing questions, but they were also constantly slut-shamed for anything the tabloids could make a story from, including dressing choices and attending parties.
Framing Brittany Spears: Tabloids + Media Targeting + Sexualizing Young Girl Celebrities
The documentary Framing Britney Spears has forced the public to sit down and evaluate how young women stars are treated by the media, tabloids, and society. It has been publicly accepted for these young stars to be humiliated, for their personal lives to be analyzed by strangers, and for them to be sexualized by men. Furthermore, in the film and music industries, young women are exploited, harassed, and taken advantage of by men in positions of power. Directors, talent agents, and other men in influential roles abuse their jobs and manipulate young girls into this abuse, while tabloids simultaneously tear them apart. This sexual misconduct and harassment have been expertly hidden by Hollywood and other powerful media giants. It is no wonder why so many young women stars experience mental breaks, substance abuse problems, and rehabilitation.
Certain restrictions “protect” these young stars to an extent, but they are left for the vultures once they turn eighteen. Billie Eilish, a popular singer, has said in many interviews that she wears baggy clothes so that people cannot judge her body. (( Moniuszko, Sara M. “Billie Eilish Says She Wears Baggy Clothes so People Can’t Have ‘an Opinion’ on Her Body.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 14 May 2019. )). Yet on her eighteenth birthday, a photo of her breasts taken by the paparazzi spread like wildfire. The public ridiculed her body, men critiquing it and projecting misogynistic comments. Additionally, after her eighteenth birthday, Billie Eilish became the most searched name on PornHub. It is clear that despite girl celebrities setting boundaries, the public and media still profit from exploiting their bodies.
Other popular young girls are preyed on, tabloids waiting for the moment they become of legal age. Emma Watson shares her experience of sexual harassment by the English tabloids on her eighteenth birthday. She recalls coming out of her birthday party to photographers laid on the ground and ready to take up-skirt photos of her. These photographs were published the morning after her eighteenth birthday everywhere, yet if they had been published a day before it would’ve been illegal. (( Leaper, Caroline. “Emma Watson: Paparazzi Took Pictures Up My Skirt On My 18th Birthday.” Marie Claire, 11 Mar. 2016. )).
Speaking Up Against Harassment
In the last few years, movements like #MeToo and other feminist waves have allowed women to have a space to speak up against harassment. For women who have worked in the film and music industries as teenagers, this is a time for them to let go of their shame and publicly condemn everything they endured. Jennette McCurdy worked with Nickelodeon appearing in various kid’s television shows, but she is most commonly known for her role as “Sam” in iCarly. Jennette McCurdy is on the frontline speaking about her abuse working under Dan Schneider.
Dan Schneider is known for creating sexual punchlines in his television shows that go over children’s heads but reach the parent’s humor. Her sexualization and harassment by Schneider led her to have deep trauma, and she is open about the embarrassment, trauma, and eating-disorder she developed working under him. To address this, McCurdy has created a film about a young girl struggling with an eating disorder called Strong Independent Women, started a podcast discussing her trauma called Empty Inside, and is vocal on social media platforms such as TikTok discussing her healing process.
For too long, society has allowed sexualization and extreme criticism of women and young girls to be accepted. As teenage girl celebrities are constantly in the public’s eye, they are ones that tend to have the most public harassment. This harassment stems from generations of misogynistic values being passed down, unfair gender-roles, and hate against women. It has been long accepted to make an easy buck off of mocking and degrading women, but jokes and embarrassing stories about women just aren’t funny.
These girls do not exist for a male audiences’ pleasure but themselves. Teen girls and women are not just beautiful — they are smart, talented, funny, creative, and have a lot to offer to this world. Thus, we must end the sexualization and harassment of young girls in the entertainment industry. It begins with teaching girls that they are allowed to stand up for themselves and teach boys not only how to respect girls but also to know their places. The time to stand up for young girls and women is now. Stop buying those tabloids that make fun of girls, turn off that interview that degrades the interviewee, and the next time your friend degrades a female celebrity, tell them they’re not as funny as they think they are.