As new documentaries land telling the story of Britney Spears, questions continue to swirl about just how much say she’s got in the narrative.
This week, landing on Netflix has been a further documentary exploring the story of music superstar Britney Spears. This one’s going by the name of Britney vs Spears, and arrives at a time when the singer’s controversial conservatorship looks set to end after a judge ruled to suspend her father from it.
Netflix has issued an extensive synopsis for the documentary, explaining that “Britney vs Spears tells the explosive story of Britney’s life and her public and private search for freedom. Featuring years-long investigative work, exclusive interviews and new documents, this Netflix feature film paints a thorough portrait of the pop star’s trajectory from girl next door to a woman trapped by fame and family and her own legal status. It shows Britney’s life without utilizing the traumatic images that have previously defined her”.
This film paints a thorough portrait of the pop star’s trajectory from girl next door to a woman trapped by fame and family and her own legal status
What the full, 184-word logline doesn’t say however was that Spears herself was directly involved in the production. Watching the film, she again seems to be positioned as an outsider to her own story. There’s a reason for this of course: the actual making of it has followed a prolonged investigation, it seems unlikely she’s been a part of it (the aforementioned conservatorship having restricted her ability to be involved). Furthermore, were Spears directly endorsing this particular feature film, then it’s hard to think Netflix would be shy about telling us.
The filmmakers behind this one are experienced and strong, with director Erin Lee Carr and journalist Jenny Eliscu the driving forces, and the legal case is very much rich for investigation. They’re very much part and parcel of the documentary, opening it up by revealing they’d been trying for some time to get people to talk about Spears, and then the clouds suddenly started to part. They had their film.
ArrayThey intersperse investigative reporting with fresh interviews, footage that feels familiar, and archive material that feels fresh. There’s no question they’ve done a hatchet job here, and they include quotes from Spears whenever possible.
Yet Britney vs Spears also follows the New York Times documentary Framing Britney Spears earlier this year, which also definitely did not have the star’s involvement. What it did spark though was renewed interest in the treatment of Spears by the media and by other high-profile names, and loud protests about the treatment she suffered. It sparked a long-overdue reassessment of what she’d been put through, and what she still continues to go through. It’s been a catalyst, and a high profile one.
It sparked a long-overdue reassessment of what she’d been put through, and what she still continues to go through
Spears herself was as much in the audience for it as the rest of us were though. It’d take a couple of weeks for her to comment on it, in a now-deleted Instagram post. She wrote that “I was embarrassed by the light they put me in… I cried for two weeks and well …. I still cry sometimes”, admitting she’d not been able to get all the way through it.
Furthermore, in July, she also posted that she “didn’t like the way the documentaries bring up humiliating moments from the past”. The complexities of her story make it uncertain whether even they were her words, amidst allegations that she wasn’t given control of her own social media accounts. But there is, I’d argue, an ongoing point in there.
It’s not for me to add my voice to her story, or to her regaining the power to tell her own. I can’t imagine for a minute that Erin Lee Carr and Jenny Eliscu didn’t do their damnedest to get Britney Spears involved in their film.
Yet it remains Spears’ story. And as much as I believe biographies can sometimes be more telling than ‘official’ accounts, there’s something authentic about something more autobiographical too. On the same day Netflix launched its film, so Sky debuted a documentary on Spears too. She’s good box office, and they all know it.
Furthermore, the Netflix ecosystem is thriving on documentaries at the moment, and the streaming giant’s algorithm clearly demands that more are fed into its system. The higher profile, the better. Earlier this month, a poorly-received documentary about former-Formula 1 star Michael Schumacher shot up its charts (albeit a film praised by his brother). Earlier this year meanwhile, footballing legend Pele got his own film too, cunningly called Pele, made with his involvement. They each got no shortage of eyeballs on them.
But this is her story, and she’s not an active part of telling it
What it all seems to have tapped into is a strand of real-life documentaries around people who are, well, still around. That they’ve been seen – in much the same way newspapers and magazines have treated them for years – as ‘content’.
It’s that bit I’m a little uneasy about. There’s little question that at least one of this year’s Britney Spears documentaries has had a significant impact on her position, and how she’s been treated. Faces from her past – notably Justin Timberlake – quickly issued apologies. Whether her critical social media post of the film was genuine or not is something I have no insight on.
But this is her story, and she’s not an active part of telling it. And for someone whose life has been controlled to such a degree, there does come a point where there’s a question over that. Britney vs Spears is a thorough investigation, responsibly to my eyes presented. Framing Britney Spears the same. I just hope – as I suggest those behind the aforementioned films do – that Spears herself gets to be the voice of the inevitable next production in this ongoing boxset.
