For awhile now I've heard about this "Free Britney" movement making the rounds online. Although I like some of Britney Spears work, I don't follow her closely so I had no idea what the movement was all about. A few months back I do recall hearing about some of her more...special fans believing her social media posts were sending them coded messages about the current state of her life. I assumed that was what #FreeBritney meant; a bunch of bored wackos reading too much into a pop star's words. While I still believe those bored wackos are, well, bored wackos, I now know the main reason behind the movement is about the conservatorship Britney has been under for an unusually long time. After viewing the documentary, "Framing Britney Spears," I can see why these calls to release her from the conservatorship have become so loud. Some thoughts...
~ Why is Britney's father her conservator in the first place? According to the doc, he was in and out of her life growing up because he was an alcoholic who couldn't keep a job. A former rep from her label talks about how the only time she met him, he made a comment about how his daughter was gonna make a ton of money and buy him a boat. By a few accounts, her mother was concerned with making Britney's pop star dreams come true, while her father was concerned with the money she would make. For him to all of a sudden come into the scene and demand to be her conservator seems...odd. One could explain it away as no one else in her orbit daring to propose such a thing and him taking the reins. But even if you go by that logic, any decent father would want to see their child heal and be able to be independent, not continue to force a conservatorship down her throat. There's is something untrustworthy about that man.
~ Britney really did not win the lottery when it came to the men in her life. And that also dates back to her father. We learn all the important relationship stuff from our parents and if your father is in and out. and not particularly engaged when he's in, then you're very likely to internalize that and carry it into your own relationships. Those cycles are difficult to break and Britney seems to have had trouble doing so. We all knew her teen pop boyfriend was (and continues to be) trash. He cheated, then accused her of cheating and built his career off of trashing her and spilling her secrets in every interview he did. Her name was on his lips for years after that split because it got him attention. As someone in the doc said, he took control of the narrative and that led to her getting all the blame and him getting all the sympathy (he employed this same tactic after the Super Bowl incident). The fallout from that launched her into her mini-marriage and then right into the arms of the scammer that she ended up marrying and having two sons with. She now essentially supports those kids and the ex and his old and new families. I'm sure being under the thumb of her conservator has not helped her make good choices when it comes to men.
~ How is someone unfit to run their own life or control their own money able to perform so often? Britney has done several albums, tours, promotional work, guest appearances and even a Vegas residency in her time under the conservatorship. I can't wrap my head around being incapable of A, but fully capable of B. I have no doubt she loves/loved being a pop star, but I can't help but wonder if all that work was an effort by her father to make money and/or keep her pacified and controllable. Depending on how she was living pre-conservatorship, not working the last 13 years probably would've reduced the size of her nest egg considerably. Lawyers and child support are expensive, after all. Putting her out there to do something she loves, yet has no control of the financials of, sounds much more beneficial to the conservatorship than to her. Presumably if she's so unwell that she needs to be overlooked by a third party, you would want her to get well before she put herself back into the toxic environment of fame. Presumably. Adding fuel to this fire is one of her original conservatorship lawyers petitioning the court for a raise, saying Britney was making considerably more money at that point, and calling the situation a, "hybrid business model". What? This person is supposedly so sick that they need constant supervision of their actions, but you're saying it's a business model? How did that not attract the attention of someone to see if this ish was on the up and up?
~ When Britney had her meltdown and was 5150'ed, she saw the writing on the wall about the conservatorship and accepted that it was coming. She met with a lawyer, who had his own questions about whether she was of sound mind to hire him, giving what he'd heard in the media. He says she was perfectly coherent and very direct when telling him she knew she could not fight the conservatorship, but she did not want her father in control of her affairs. This lawyer went to court on her behalf and told the judge what she'd said, believing they could work out a deal where a impartial and experienced third party would be appointed the conservator. Instead, the judge told the lawyer he had a document that clearly showed Britney was not of sound mind to hire her own attorney and so not only would he not be granting the request, he would be booting the lawyer from the proceedings. He literally was not allowed to be her lawyer. The judge refused to show what document he was allegedly in possession of. This was the last best chance Britney had of making this conservatorship work in her favor.
~ The lawyer who was removed from the case spoke of someone with knowledge of the conservatorship telling him Britney was the "highest functioning conservatee" he had ever seen. Does that mean she's...normal? Conservatorships are typically used for older people and tend to last the rest of the lives of those people. It makes perfect sense why they would be used in that capacity, it's highly unlikely someone in that situation and at that age would regain the ability to control their own affairs. But Britney is in her thirties with, hopefully, a long way to go ahead of her. Is the aim to keep her under conservatorship for all those years ahead? Even though she's "high functioning" and seemingly able to express coherent wants and non-wants to the courts? How has no court probed into this shady ass arrangement yet? How has no one wanted to speak to her at length and hear her side and figure out whether whatever ailment that was grounds to put her under the conservatorship is not under control now? I assume it was some sort of mental illness that started the whole thing and many of those can be controlled with medication and/or therapy. Even if it is a bigger, less controllable issue (ie. dementia has been one rumored issue), I would think that would be in writing somewhere and would make it more difficult for her to file court papers at all regarding the conservatorship.
~ Obviously, none of us are privy to the financial and in and out details of the conservatorship. But it should not be lost on anyone that Britney is paying the bills for this whole thing. The lawyers, the lawyers' lawyers, her father and his lawyers, her ex and, possibly, his lawyers. That's a lot of money. That's also a lot of motivation to keep the conservatorship in place. Her father has to account to the court what he spends, but that's still very little oversight. Britney likely doesn't know where all the money is going because she's being shielded from all of that by her father, who the court says doesn't even have to let her in on all of it. Where there's money, there's corruption.
~ The last thought I had watching this documentary was how unfair the media was to Britney, both before and after her meltdown. I don't think it's in dispute that, in the beginning, she invited the paparazzi and enjoyed the attention they brought her. But as that industry exploded, she was unable to control it and they became more aggressive in pursuing her. The doc actually had a pap who was asked if she ever told them to leave her alone (and we saw several pieces of video where she says just that) and he claimed she would say, "Can you leave me alone today, guys?", which he took to mean she just wanted to be left alone that day, not forever. Really, dude? She's pushing through the crowd, she's crying and she's begging you to leave on the regular. These photographers played a part in her downfall. And so did the mainstream media. There were so many awful pieces of video showing well known interviewers asking her cringeworthy questions. Diane Sawyer asks her how people should reconcile her girl next door image with her "slut" image, and later asks her what she did to Timberfuck to make him so hurt and upset with her. And she got so many questions about the supposed "slut" thing, when all she was doing was growing into her sexuality and wearing revealing outfits. Some random politician's wife called into a show to say how she wanted to, "shoot her in the head" for...I guess her image? Other interviewers inquired about her virginity and whether she'd had a boob job, right to her face. As if that wasn't enough, post meltdown, she became fodder for comedy shows and bits, even though she was clearly suffering from some sort of mental illness. The conversation of mental illness now is miles away from what it was then, but that's not an excuse. Clearly, she was not well and the media should've just shut up, rather than continuing to land body blows while she was down.
I'm not sure what impact this documentary will have overall, it likely won't change anything when it comes to her court battle. But if you can watch this and not think something is amiss with her conservatorship, you need to watch it again and pay close attention.
