#FreeBritney and How the Media Tears Down Young Women

Content Warning: sexualization of minors, drug abuse

Upon the release of The New York Time Presents: Framing Britney Spears documentary on Hulu, there has been much discussion circulating on social media not only about the #FreeBritney movement, but also about other famous women who have been failed and torn apart by the media.

If you haven’t watched the Britney documentary —which I highly recommend— it takes you through the life of Britney Spears and her rise to fame: from child stardom on the Mickey Mouse Club, to her oversexualization as a rising teenage star, to her infamous head-shaving meltdown in 2007, to the present, where she has largely disappeared from the public eye. This is due to the conservatorship order that she was placed under in 2008, which gives Spears’ father legal authority over her finances and personal decisions. Conservatorships are usually granted to protect people who are unable to take care of themselves, but since the conservatorship was granted, Spears never stopped working. Quite the opposite in fact; since then, she has produced four albums and embarked on several world tours, yet is still under the control of her father at 37 years old.

When Britney Spears was just 10 years old, she performed “Love Can Build A Bridge'' on the show Star Search, after which she was asked by host Ed McMahon if she had a boyfriend. At 16 years old she starred in the music video for “... Baby One More Time,” where she is dressed as a “sexy Catholic schoolgirl,” and at 17 years old she was asked by Dutch interviewer Ivo Niehe whether she had ever had a boob job. In 2002, her then recent ex boyfriend Justin Timberlake, when asked in a radio interview whether he had “f***ed” Britney (verbatim), he replied, gleefully, “Okay, yeah I did it.”

There is much more to be said about Britney Spears, her conservatorship, and how she has been treated by the paparazzi and media throughout her career, but this discussion has brought to the forefront of my mind all the other famous young women who have been victims of celebrity- both past and present.

Young women’s bodies and sexual lives have always been a topic of discussion in Hollywood. Another young star that was harshly treated and oversexualized from a very young age is Megan Fox— one of Hollywood’s biggest sex symbols of the late 2000s-early 2010s. While her portrayal in the Transformers movies sparked discussion about the male gaze and pigeonholed her as the hot girl/love interest in future roles, Fox also revealed she was sexually exploited on set when she was underage. In 2009, during an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live, she revealed that while filming Bad Boys II, director Michael Bay had her wear a bikini, cowboy hat, and six inch heels. Since she was underage at the time of shooting, they were unable to film her sitting at a bar, so instead Bay had her dance underneath a waterfall, getting her soaking wet. And when Fox suggested this decision was a “microcosm of how Bay’s mind works,” Kimmel responded, “That’s really a microcosm of how all our minds work but some of us have the decency to repress those thoughts.” Fox was 15 years old when Bad Boys II was filmed. 

Spears and Fox are hardly the only young female celebrities who are owed an apology for their treatment by the media at the height of their fame. Two of the biggest young “it girls”of the 2000s were Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Bynes, talented stars that the media loved to pit against each other. Their trajectories are probably best summarized by Youtube creator mila tequila’s videos “Lindsay Lohan: The Rise of a Starlet,” “Lindsay Lohan: Ready for a Revival?”, and “The Amanda Bynes Story” parts one and two (which I also highly recommend). As discussed in the videos, both women had their careers defined not by their impeccable comedic timing and timeless performances, but by DUIs, arrests, drugs, clubbing, obsessive paparazzi, and mental illness. Both women have largely faded from the spotlight in the past few years, and it is worth questioning whether they would have had longer lasting careers had they not been so mistreated by the media and the people around them. 

The obsessive tabloids and paparazzi become even more destructive in its coverage of famous women when drugs are involved- Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston are just two examples of this. In an interview with Diane Sawyer in 2002, Houston admitted to using marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, and pills, and as her drug use got more frequent and her behavior more erratic, the tabloids continued to publish disrespectful headlines about her drug problem, including a National Enquirer headline that read, “WHITNEY COLLAPSES! STRUNG OUT & BROKE, IT’S WORSE THAN ANYONE THOUGHT.” Amy Winehouse received similar treatment. As she battled drug and alcohol addiction throughout her life, she was ruthlessly harassed by the paparazzi and British press, who often photographed her when she was visibly unwell or intoxicated. Headlines like “AMY ON CRACK” from The Sun and “AMY IN DRUGS COLLAPSE: Wild party girl has adrenaline jab and stomach pumped” from The Guardian certainly did not help with Winehouse’s substance abuse issues. As the media and tabloids shamed and made a spectacle of their battles with addiction, both Houston and Winehouse died similar premature, tragic deaths.

In the current Digital Age, famous women and girls have been exposed to new types of harassment via social media which can arguably be worse and more difficult to escape than that of trashy tabloids. After former Disney star-turned-singer Demi Lovato overdosed on heroin and almost died in 2018, she was victim to a barrage of cruel drug related “jokes” on Twitter. One meme, using a picture of her 2017 album Tell Me You Love Me, says “I tried playing my Demi Lovato record today… but the needle kept getting stuck.” Billie Eilish, after much speculation regarding her oversized wardrobe, revealed in a 2019 Calvin Klein ad that the reason she dresses in such baggy clothing is to avoid having others make judgements about her body, stating, “Nobody can have an opinion because they haven't seen what’s underneath.” Millie Bobby Brown, star of Netflix’s Stranger Things, has experienced similar inappropriate treatment on social media. In an Instagram post for her 16th birthday last year she shared, “the last few years haven't been easy, i'll admit that. there are moments i get frustrated from the inaccuracy, inappropriate comments, sexualization, and unnecessary insults that ultimately have resulted in pain and insecurity for me. but not ever will i be defeated.” 

Young women who have garnered fame via social media have (unsurprisingly) also been subjected to intense criticism and oversexualization. JoJo Siwa of Dance Moms and Youtube fame has been mocked for dressing like a child and “not acting her age”, and was met with harassment from many conservatives when she came out as gay earlier this year. While Siwa managed to avoid being oversexualized due to her PG content and image, Danielle Bregoli and Malu Travejo are two examples of the harmful consequences of being oversexualized from as young as 14-15 years old. Bregoli, better known as the “catch me outside girl” from a now infamous episode of Dr. Phil turned her 15 minutes of fame into a rap career. Trevejo, who grew her following from the (now defunct) app Musical.ly and Instagram, was also able to capitalize on this following and start a fairly successful career as a Latin pop artist. Both Bregoli and Trevejo recently turned 18, and upon doing so, quickly started OnlyFans accounts where they share scantily clad photos of themselves for their paid subscribers. Bregoli turned 18 just last month on March 26th, and created her OnlyFans account shortly after. In under six hours of her account being up, she earned over a million dollars from subscriptions, tips, and direct message tips. This is obviously disturbing and opens up another discussion about how the oversexualization of these underage girls lead to them pursuing sex work as soon as they were legally able to.

There are so many other examples of famous women and girls being torn apart by the media, paparazzi, and social media that I could honestly write a dissertation on the topic. As a kid, I obviously wasn’t privy to the ways that famous women were constantly being criticized and vilified for their behavior or mere existence, but now looking back as an adult, it is heartbreaking and impossible to ignore. Watching the cycle continue in the age of social media makes me worry for the future of current and future young rising stars, but at the same time, social media has given us, the general public, a unique opportunity to call out injustices and oversexualization when it comes to high profile women. Following the release of Framing Britney Spears and a fair amount of social media backlash, Just Timberlake posted a long overdue apology to both Britney Spears and Janet Jackson on his Instagram, saying “I specifically want to apologize to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson both individually because I care for and respect these women and I know I failed.” While examples like this are definitely a step in the right direction when it comes to calling out and holding those who have abused and taken advantage of famous women accountable, there are countless apologies left to be made, and for many, it is too little too late.