Canadian Broadcasting Company: "The cultural reckoning we faced during #FreeBritney is already dead"

[blackingouthenegativity]

This article is going to be too long for most of Exhale, so I bolded certain parts so that you can skim the many points

The cultural reckoning we faced during #FreeBritney is already dead | CBC Arts

WWW.CBC.CA

---

A year and a half after Britney Spears was released from her conservatorship, the way we talk about mental illness is regressing.

The cultural reckoning we faced during #FreeBritney is already dead

The way we talk about mental illness has regressed since the end of Britney Spears' conservatorship

On January 25, the Ventura County sheriff's office conducted a wellness check on Britney Spears, whose fans called the police concerned about her. Their concern? She had suddenly deleted her Instagram profile, which fans and the public have intrusively analyzed for years.

Britney is no stranger to this kind of surveillance — her mental health has been at the centre of an enormous and unforgiving media circus for nearly two decades. Despite being released in November 2021 from the conservatorship she had been under for 13 years, she continues to endure often-malicious speculation about her sanity. 

The seemingly sudden deletion of her Instagram came after months of "peculiar" posts, including the memed-to-death videos of Britney dancing, which seemed to evoke both confusion and disgust in viewers. On Twitter, she said that her privacy was invaded by the wellness check and "things went a little too far." Britney's Instagram is back up as she regularly posts outfit-of-the-day videos, inspirational quotes, and AI-generated art — but the comments are turned off. 

When they were still on, people cast vicious judgments framed as genuine concern for her, ranging from outright shaming to a patronizing kind of pity. The worst comments went so far as to question if she should still be under a conservatorship. It's no wonder she decided to delete her Instagram altogether — all the comments showed that little seems to have changed in the year and a half since the #FreeBritney movement.

The discussion about Britney's Instagram posts frame her perceived mental illness as uncomfortable to even look at — as though the public's discomfort, which comes out of sheer ableism, is more important than Britney's autonomy and freedom. It proves that we didn't meaningfully learn the ways that both misogyny and ableism worked in tandem to hurt Britney. The current perception of Britney Spears is just one example of our societal failures when it comes to the treatment of mad and disabled people — and if this is how we view Britney, one of the most successful pop stars in history, what hope is there for ordinary mad people?

We need to #FreeBritney again — for real this time. 

I've lived with mental illness for as long as I can remember. Despite disability and mad justice being so integral to my own understanding of madness and my experiences, sometimes I'm still made to feel like something is wrong with me. This feeling has come out of disrespectful interactions in almost every personal, academic, and professional space; I've encountered endless evidence of the fact that our societal infrastructure actively works against people like me to make us feel like mental illness is something to be ashamed of. This especially comes out when I talk openly about my mental health and reach out for support. Since ableism has touched every aspect of my life, I hide. 

When the documentary Framing Britney Spears brought attention to the fan-led #FreeBritney movement in 2021, it seemed to cause a cultural reckoning that made me hopeful. It felt like the conversation around mental illness was changing. As fans brought the reality of Britney's conservatorship into the public eye, people looked inward and assessed how quickly they believed — and contributed to — the narrative of a "crazy" female celebrity.

"We were all complicit. I know I was," Anne T. Donahue wrote for CBC Arts, reflecting on how the media's mistreatment of Britney trickled down to everyday people also normalizing a misogynistic and ableist attitude toward her. "I was far from the only one who indulged in the perverse speculation and judgment … As the decade progressed, so did the prevalence of outlets like TMZ and Perez Hilton, whose payroll hinged on ripping apart famous people in a bid to leave them powerless and to fuel our own resentments." 

It appeared as though there was a burgeoning understanding that the media and public's ridicule of Britney was a key factor in her mental health deteriorating. Journalists and media personalities were criticized after interviews resurfaced of them humiliating Britney on television; Perez Hilton and Justin Timberlake publicly apologized for mistreating her years ago. The 2000s tabloid stories about Britney got a 2021 treatment, and reviewed with a new perspective, it seemed clear to everyone that the media failed her. 

But this reckoning has already lost steam, as factions of the media and everyday people are back to making assumptions about Spears that are unsubstantiated, voyeuristic, and wildly ableist — enough to make her want to avoid the comments altogether. When you Google "Britney Spears Instagram," you'll find many articles mocking the pop star for posting "alarming" videos online. "Britney Spears Posts Bizarre and Animated Video, Fans Concerned," reads one TMZ headline. In another article, Ken Seeley from the A&E reality show Intervention says, "Everybody is getting to see the consequences of releasing that conservatorship." As insensitive as that comment is, it unfortunately echoes what many people have said about Britney in recent months — that she was "better off" under a conservatorship. 

Though I can't relate to Britney's specific experience, I know how it feels to not be taken seriously when you are honest about your mental health needs. In a series of since-deleted tweets after fans called the wellness check, she shared, "I shut down my Instagram because there were too many people saying I looked like an idiot dancing and that I looked crazy. Honestly I was doing my best but it disturbed me to see people freely talk about it on TV ... yep it hurt my feelings."

Honestly, I was doing my best. I hear the frustration in those words. Britney is aware that those who look at her as an insane person think they know her better than she knows herself. They would rather scrutinize her social media with the same twisted fascination of true crime enthusiasts than just let her be mad. Because, of course, we can't be crazy and in control of ourselves. Autonomy is for the sane. We must be controlled until we prove we're no longer crazy.

Comments suggesting that there is something "wrong" with Britney, and that she deserves the abuse of a conservatorship, are beyond callous. They prove that we can't fathom someone being mentally ill and still deserving of agency.

What Britney deserves is to be fully and openly mad and whatever else, instead of having to live with people casting their own projections of who they want her to be. She doesn't deserve to have her behaviour constantly dissected just because she's in the public eye. 

If we can't imagine something else — something better — for Britney, we continue to fail all the mad people in our communities. We continue to have to free Britney, again and again.

[Gutterguppy]

Thank you for posting this ! Hopefully we can all get back to a place where we treat Britney with the compassion and respect she deserves, and the general public will start to wisen up to the deplorable tactics exhibited by TMZ, the DailyFail, Perez Hilton and other media leeches. 

[dulcaewm]

4 minutes ago, blackingouthenegativity said:

"I shut down my Instagram because there were too many people saying I looked like an idiot dancing and that I looked crazy. Honestly I was doing my best but it disturbed me to see people freely talk about it on TV ... yep it hurt my feelings."

Heartbreaking to read that again 

[easy]

i read this the other day and LOVED every word. i'm so glad there are more voices out there combatting the harmful narrative that's been allowed to run amuck. 

[Tingle2mingle86]

Wow. Nothing was written but the absolute truth but it hurt reading it 😫. It makes me so angry and sad the way people treat her or feel they have the right to. It’s gross, ignorant, and just blatantly mean. But in the end, when everything is over and said, if Britney is truly happy in her heart then she won. And that’s all I want for her. Then, today, and in the future. ❤️❤️

[PokemonSpears]

Quote

The people who want Britney to stop "embarrassing herself" online when she posts dancing videos or scantily clad photos only see her as sick, not as a woman who may be trying to reclaim her personal expression after spending 13 years under the total control of others. In fact, given the reaction to her freely expressing herself, it's clear that people view a noncompliant woman as unhealthy, and neurodivergence itself as embarrassing. They wanted to "free" Britney, but only the version of her that they felt was palatable to them. 

this basically summarizes what I've been saying all this time

People that criticize her or her posts "out of concern" are nothing but judgmental, because they're only acting out of embarrassment or being uncomfortable because she doesn't fit their idea of a free, "sane" Britney, or a woman in general 

[Eternalhouse]

This is sadly true. And a lot of it seems to happen here in one of her biggest fan forum. The world these days want diversity and starts to acknowledge so many weird shiit, but when it comes to Britney, when she's being herself, so many people want her to be someone else. Makes no sense.....

[GlitterRain]

Thank you for posting this! 

[blackingouthenegativity]

7 minutes ago, Jup1ter said:

 

but there's other people that believe Britney is sane and was advocating for her, but suddenly she validates people that she's disturbed with her rants and videos

I've seen a lot of criticism

basically is bc Instagram has this hidden guideline of how and what people should post on it, we don't expect a celebrity huge as Britney to post how she posts

my only concern is that the the court look down on her bc of her posts

 

She doesn't validate anyone. Nothing she has done is worthy of the amount of attention and scrutiny it has received. It says more about what's broken in our society and culture than it does about Britney. 

[SonOfSun]

Great article, it’s nice for once to have a smart and real view on the situation. Someone’s mental health is nobody’s business, there shouldn’t even be comments about that. She who she is and she is the way she is. I hope Britney reads the article.

[ElToxico]

4 hours ago, Gutterguppy1202 said:

Thank you for posting this ! Hopefully we can all get back to a place where we treat Britney with the compassion and respect she deserves, and the general public will start to wisen up to the deplorable tactics exhibited by TMZ, the DailyFail, Perez Hilton and other media leeches. 

And don't forget TikTok is a cesspool of conspiracy theorists with cheap exploitative tactics for clout and views......I think they are the #1 source of crap these days specially for folk under 30

[Tetris]

This was great! Thanks for posting!