Leave Britney Alone: “Framing Britney Spears”and the #FreeBritney Movement

Image courtesy of FX Network

By Margaret Adams

Britney Spears has been an international superstar, releasing music and performing shows for a better part of the 21st century, of which she has also been under a conservatorship of person and estate. 

Times Magazine’s documentary series on Hulu and FX recently released an episode on February 5 called “Framing Britney,” which explores the details and circumstances of her conservatorship. The documentary was made as a result of fans starting the #FreeBritney movement in response to Britney’s seemingly-coded Instagram posts and captions; these concerning and rather cryptic messages appeared to be a call for help. 

The conservatorship started in 2008 when Spears’ father, Jamie Spears, deemed his daughter unable to handle her finances or personal life after she was hospitalized for mental health issues. He became the permanent co-conservator of her estate and has been controlling her finances ever since. 

“Throughout his service as Conservator, Mr. Spear’s sole motivation has been his unconditional love for his daughter and a fierce desire to protect her from those trying to take advantage of her,” Jamie’s legal team wrote. “He wants his daughter to be happy, healthy, protected and thriving. His love for Britney is a material factor in how he has been able to turn her estate around from being in the red to what it is now.”

Britney’s court-ordered attorney has expressed opposite sentiments from Britney, and has brought to light the history of Britney’s team trying to distance her from her father throughout her career. 

“My client has informed me that she is afraid of her father,” Ingham told the judge. “She will not perform again if her father is in charge of her career.”

On February 11, Spears’ father, Jamie Spears, lost his bid to keep his authority of controlling her investments, according to NBC. Jamie will continue to work with the financial firm Bessemer Trust, which was given co-conservator powers along with his daughter in 2020. The next hearing is scheduled for March 17. 

The #FreeBritney movement as portrayed in the documentary is a grassroots effort from her most diehard fans to advocate for her freedom from conservatorship. 

While some attribute the start of the movement to Chris Crocker and his viral video in 2007, pleading with the public to “leave Britney alone,” the real start of #FreeBritney came around with Britney’s announcement to cancel her second stint in her Las Vegas residency called “Domination” due to her father’s declining health. Tess Barker and Barbara Gray, hosts of “Britney’s Gram,” a podcast that usually dissected the singer’s Instagram posts, began to use their platform to spread awareness for Britney’s freedom from her conservators micromanaging her life and career. 

Since then, the movement took on a life of its own on social media. From fans creating countless accounts on Twitter, to people protesting Spears’ conservatorship in front of the courthouse during her hearings, fans across the world have shown their support in getting her full independence back. 

The documentary not only identifies the turning points in Spears’ life that have led up to the court-appointed conservatorship, but it also brings to light the culture of ridicule that pop media has brought down against women in the 2000s; whether it be about their love lives or bodies, the media and pop culture audiences were constantly watching and criticizing women. It also raised attention towards sexism in the mental health care industry, and how misogyny intersects so many institutions involved in Spears’ life. 

“Our culture is the main character in the film also, because we’re looking at ourselves and how we enabled this or how it affected us,” states director of “Framing Britney,” Samantha Stark, in a Billboard interview. 

In response to the documentary, many celebrities like Bette Midler and Courtney Love have expressed their support of Britney in her freedom and the #FreeBritney movement on Twitter, as well as thousands of fans. Not only have many fans and celebrities sided with Britney in her fight for freedom, but they have also placed blame on the people that have been bystanders or directly hurt her throughout this career. 

Justin Timberlake, who dated Spears from 1999-2002, faced backlash for using their breakup as a foundation for popular songs he wrote, as well as archived footage from a radio show of him exposing their sexual relationship after they broke up, which was shown in the documentary. 

“The industry is flawed. It sets men, especially white men, up for success,” he says on Instagram in an apology. “It’s designed this way. As a man in a privileged position I have to be vocal about this. Because of my ignorance, I didn’t recognise it for all that it was while it was happening in my own life but I do not want to ever benefit from others being pulled down again.”

Many other viewers of the documentary were unsatisfied, as they felt the documentary left out the conversation surrounding disability and the rights of disabled people in conservatorships. 

“Spears is physically able-bodied, beautiful, and successful, not what disability narratives have historically prized throughout the years,” states Kristen Lopez in an IndieWire article. “Because of a lack of good representation on screen, when issues like this come up people clutch their pearls, decrying there’s no way someone like Britney Spears could be disabled. Disability is not normalized, so it’s hard for those to see someone they idolize as being a member of a marginalized group.”

Netflix is currently working on its own documentary on Spears and her life under conservatorship. Two people involved in the making of the NYT documentary, Babs Gray and Tess Barker, are also starting a podcast series that will focus on Spears’ life, the on-going legal battle with her father, and the #FreeBritney movement to release her.
“We all have so many different bright beautiful lives !!!” says Britney on Instagram, responding to the documentary. “Remember, no matter what we think we know about a person’s life it is nothing compared to the actual person living behind the lens !!!!”