with Kevin Fallon Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
This Week:
Our Objectification of Britney Spears I am, as always, in awe of Britney Spears.
I’m not sure what I expected when it was announced that the pop star was going to address the court about her controversial conservatorship on Wednesday.
Maybe it’s these last years’ undercurrent of cynicism braided with skepticism that made me assume the news from the hearing couldn’t be that shocking.
Maybe it’s the way we’ve been conditioned to, against our better judgement, assume that legal arrangements like Spears’ conservatorship are really, truly in a person’s best interest. It’s a blind trust, the “we don’t know what we don’t know” of it all, even if we suspect something nefarious—and even if we know well enough how easy it is for these things to be abused.
It could be because we’re in fact among the kind of people we imagine ourselves to be better than: those who don’t believe potential victims because they seem “crazy.” 
The #FreeBritney movement, for so long, seemed like unhinged extremism from unstable fans. Fandom, especially in 2021, seems to foster unjustifiable behavior, the kind that’s easy to write off because it can be so unreasonable. It was too easy to not believe them. And for Spears, a person whose mental state has been the subject of two decades’ worth of vicious public discourse, maybe it was also easy to not believe her, too.
She said as much in her testimony. She previously told the public and her fans that she was happy because she was “in denial” and “in shock.” She hoped that she could “fake it ’til you make it.” She never came forward with details of her situation before, she said, “because I honestly don’t think anyone would believe me.”
The tragic thing is that she’s right. Up until this moment, I’m not sure she would have been believed.
It took hard work for those fans (whom many people, myself included, were so tempted to dismiss) to take the #FreeBritney movement to mainstream credibility. It took the documentaries to legitimize the concerns, and investigative reporting to surface Spears’ years-long effort to end the conservatorship.
I consider myself a massive Britney Spears fan and I don’t think I would have believed her. I was so certain that this testimony wouldn’t be a big deal, that all of these things that had been whispered weren’t true. Why is that? Why was it so easy to ignore the truth that was in plain sight?
As long as there were concerts to go to and an Instagram account to be both mystified and delighted by, the rest could be locked away. We didn’t think about or acknowledge the possibly dark secrets. Yeah, there was all this conservatorship drama that people brought up sometimes, but it was background noise. You’re at a concert and she’s performing “Work Bitch.” Who wants to think about all that?
Spears spoke for 23 minutes at the hearing, largely uninterrupted, and almost each minute brought another shocking revelation of how traumatic her abuse under the conservatorship has been.
She was forced to attend rehab when she didn’t want nor need to and forced to take lithium against her will. She can’t get married and the conservators won’t let her remove her IUD so she can have another baby. She compared how she was treated by her father to sex trafficking. She worked seven days a week under threat that she couldn’t see her kids, spend time with her boyfriend, or go on vacation otherwise.
One part of her statement that I’ve thought a lot about is when she says she was forced to go on her 2018 tour. Her managers threatened to sue her if she didn’t and, under the conservatorship, she couldn’t hire her own attorney to fight them. With no other recourse, she signed the contract for the tour. “It was very threatening and scary,” she told the court. “Out of fear, I went ahead and did the tour.”
I saw that 2018 tour. I attended one of her dates at Atlantic City’s Borgata Casino. I remember that rumors about her mental health and reports that the conservatorship was stripping her of control of her career were on the back of everyone’s minds. It was certainly the first thing friends wanted to know about when I got back: How was she? Did she seem lucid? The cruel whispers were that she was some drugged robot going through the motions. Did she seem “all there”?
There were moments that raised an eyebrow. The only time she addressed the crowd was to say, “What’s up, Atlantic City? This place reminds me of Louisiana. Are you ready to break the ice?” It made no sense. Everyone was confused. And as such, we were living for it. In some ways, Spears seeming a little off and strange became part of her brand, something to be celebrated. I believe at the time, I called it “iconic.”
Spears gave a phenomenal performance. Her dancing was fantastic. She looked great. At the time, I remember it all seemed robotic, but not in a way where Spears didn’t seem alive. It just was orchestrated within an inch of its life, where every tilt of the head and smile seemed like it was running a carefully executed program.
The thing that struck me most, though, was that Spears did seem to be enjoying herself. That Atlantic City show is the one where a fan screamed “WHO IS IT!?” when the intro for “Gimme More” played, right before Spears recited her famous “It’s Britney, bitch” line. She cracked a huge smile and laughed, nodding and winking in his direction. It was a blast, mostly because it seemed to tickle her so much.
The aftermath of her testimony this week has obviously triggered a lot of self-reflection and reconsideration. That started after the airing of Framing Britney Spears earlier this year. It finally forced the media and the public that enabled it to confront the misogyny of how she was treated and exploited. The rumination has centered around the systems and the institutions that perpetuated this treatment but, at least as I’ve found—and I’d venture many have as well—it’s also very personal. 
The objectification of Britney Spears was in every headline, tabloid report, paparazzi chase, late-night comedy joke, and ensuing media circus that financially capitalized on her struggles. But it was also in the way we, even her biggest fans, consumed her music, performances, and celebrity.
We went to concerts making jokes about whether or not she was “with it.” We watched her performances on TV and graded them on a “good for you, Brit!” curve, knowing she was weathering dark personal issues each time she took the stage. When she was younger, her sexuality was exploited. Now it was her trauma.
News reports of her testimony this week were paired with photos of her dancing in shackles. Lyrics from songs like “I’m a Slave 4 U,” “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman,” and “Stronger” were used as puns in headlines. Even in the supportive celebration of her bravery, Spears and her career were being objectified again.
That’s one of the many things, I think, that makes what she did this week so powerful. It’s a challenge to end the objectification. The question is whether we’re willing to confront and consider the systems—the ones we uphold ourselves—and do it.
Time to Watch Porn on Netflix Again There was a time last summer, pretty much exactly a year ago, when everyone was basically watching porn on Netflix.
The kinky soft-core international series 365 Days, which Daily Beast critic Nick Schager called “a Polish Fifty Shades of Grey,” became a sensation. It spawned debate about its controversial storyline and the abusive nature of its sex scenes—but also inspired a few “everyone be quiet so I can watch my explicit sex scenes in peace” retorts.
Then Gaspar Noé’s 2015 film Love somewhat inexplicably became the service’s most-watched movie. Not only does the move feature multiple unsimulated sex scenes, it opens with its leading man being masturbated by his female co-star’s nipple until he eventually ejaculates, his erect penis pointed at the camera as he orgasms into the lens. Cinema, baby! (When it premiered, this was all in 3D...)
There were several reasons why the film surged to the top of Netflix’s most-watched list—there was a viral TikTok challenge where people would film themselves watching the opening scene in shock. But the lesson was learned: People like watching sex on Netflix. 
The pearl-clutching tenor of surprise and snickering whenever there’s a phenomenon like this can be patronizing and shaming. Remember the “mommy porn” discussion when the Fifty Shades sensation hinted that middle-aged women actually have sexual desires? It was demeaning.
Still, if the mind-blowing revelation that people like sex, are sometimes horny, and sometimes like to watch hot people have it—or at least simulate having it in movies or TV—can be accepted as fact, it’s interesting to figure out where that fits into this idea of what Netflix is as a brand, and what people turn to it for.
It’s been comfort-watch central, with audiences making a blockbuster hit out of Schitt’s Creek and, over the years, resurging the relevance of shows like The Office, Friends, and Gilmore Girls.
It’s elevated itself as a hub of prestige content to rival the likes of HBO, where eye-popping production and marketing budgets are devoted to shows like The Crown and creators like Ryan Murphy and Shonda Rhimes are wooed with massive deals. Its craven desire to be the destination for Oscar-friendly awards fare has become one of the dominant entertainment stories in recent years.
Like most of us and sex, Netflix doesn’t really talk about it, almost as if to say, “Who knows how all those sexy shows got to the top of the most-watched list?” (People have long suspected that there are certain algorithms that impact that list.)
But now, the service seems to be leaning into the hornier part of its brand. Whereas Love and 365 Days were outside productions that Netflix acquired, the streamer is finally producing a similar show itself, the sexual soap opera Sex/Life, which premieres Friday.
The series stars Sarah Shahi as a mother who seems to have it all, and recognizes the cliché of it. She’s married to the nicest man in the world (played by Mike Vogel), who happens to be rich and an absolute hunk, like someone brought to life a Ken doll. But the house in Greenwich, Connecticut, the kids, the “perfect life”...it’s starting to bore her. She starts fantasizing about when she was in her twenties, a sexual free spirit whose world was rocked on a daily basis by a music producer bad boy (Adam Demos).
When he unexpectedly reenters her life, she begins journaling explicit memories of all their wild sex, which play out in flashbacks. Her husband finds this, reads it, and takes it as a challenge, torn between not recognizing the woman in these stories and using her detailed recollections as an instruction manual to get her off himself. She, too, becomes torn between her old life and the one she has now.
Forget all that plot stuff, though. The point is, there’s sex. So much of it. There’s a rare, very sensual female gaze to it all, with Shahi’s co-stars naked just as often as she is and her pleasure the focus of the camera lens. At one point, there is a penis reveal that triggered a full-body physical reaction: I yelped, fell off the couch, and afterward had to take some blood pressure medicine. In other words, all those sex-obsessed Netflix subscribers will love it.
Is it good? Not always. But it’s competent enough at what’s doing—sexual escapism—that you don’t mind performing satisfaction in return.
Everything Annoys Me I don’t know what it is about this last week in particular, but everything made me cranky. Every day was a constant stream of news items that me groan “for fuck’s sake,” slam my laptop shut and walk away.
Maybe there’s something astrological to it. Maybe it’s because it was so hot and humid that I felt like I was living in the armpit of Hades after he took a Crossfit class and mainlined a Taco Bell party platter. Or maybe I’m just an irredeemable ornery grouch. 
Either way, here are some things that I had absolutely no patience for this week.
All the revelations about how obviously shitty producers on The Bachelor were to people of color that Rachel Lindsay revealed in a New York magazine tell-all. Nick Cannon fathering four children in one year with three different women. The fact that Olivia Rodrigo only graduated high school this week, news that added about seven new wrinkles to my forehead.
The paparazzi photos of Erika Jayne pumping gas without her usual $40,000-a-month glam on, and then her claiming some sort of feminist hero narrative in response. The trailer for a horror film titled Karen, about a racist busybody named Karen who terrorizes a Black family that moves to the neighborhood. This original New York Times headline to a story about NFL player Carl Nassib coming out as gay.
The whole vibe of this viral photo, where a woman stages a photo op on a hiking trail with a sign that says, “Into the woods we go, because kids won’t remember their best day of television.” Trump apparently wanting the Justice Department to stop SNL from being too mean to him. Avril Lavigne joining TikTok looking as if she hasn’t aged a day in the last 20 years, adding yet seven more wrinkles to my forehead.
Finally, this photo of Justin and Hailey Bieber with Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron. I can’t quite explain why, but I just know that it is cursed. 
The Good Fight Is Back, Once Again Very Good The season five premiere of The Good Fight was this week on Paramount+, making perhaps the best case yet to subscribe to Paramount+. Because the show has been historically so astoundingly good, perhaps it’s not a surprise that the premiere finds a way to cycle through a bullet-point list of all the traumas of the last year—COVID, George Floyd’s murder, the insurrection—and mirror back not just the horror, but also the fever-dream delirium it felt like to go through it. 
There’s a lot to unpack, but there is one scene that I may never forget, that I have played in my mind on a loop ever since I watched the screener. The divine Christine Baranski as Diane Lockhart is explaining to the law firm how teleconferencing will work during the pandemic shutdown, telling them all to download a program “called Zoom.com.” (Watch the clip.)
In other words, you better believe that Christine Baranski says “Zoom dot com” is the song of the summer.
Her Pride Will Go On and On 
With all due respect to the many well-intentioned and inspiring acknowledgements of LGBT Pride that various celebrities and allies have made this month, the only pride message that matters is the one Céline Dion posted of herself serving a rainbow of high-fashion looks. Rumors are this is now the new pride flag.
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