Hope it adjustments the way in which we deal with ladies: Director Samantha Stark on Britney Spears documentary

By PTI
NEW DELHI: ‘Framing Britney Spears’, a documentary on the pop star’s traumatic private life, has led to widespread debate on movie star lives however director Samantha Stark says her hope is it additionally prompts introspection on how all ladies are handled, not simply stars.

The response to the documentary underscores there’s something particular about Britney and that individuals love her so, Stark mentioned whereas attempting to articulate the affect the 39-year-old troubled star has had on the world.

“I think we should think about how we treat all women because watching Britney get treated like that affects us as well. It doesn’t just affect her or the other stars,” Stark advised PTI from New York in a Zoom interview.

‘I’m about the identical age as Britney. I bear in mind watching her get made enjoyable of on TV and within the magazines and I take into consideration how that affected me… So I hope it may well assist change issues for normal ladies in addition to stars,” she mentioned.

The critically acclaimed movie, which launched on February 5 as an version of The New York Times Presents on FX and FX on Hulu within the US, is out there in India on the Discovery+ app. It captures the darkish aspect of the lifetime of the singing star who burst on the American music scene in within the late Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s.

Her private life has at all times been underneath a harsh highlight – be it her relationship with fellow musician Justin Timberlake, her 55-hour marriage to childhood good friend Jason Allen Alexander or her three-year marriage to dancer Kevin Federline with whom she has two sons.

In 2007, the yr she bought divorced from Federline, Britney shaved her head with electrical clippers at a salon in LA as paparazzi photographed her. She admitted herself to a therapy facility after that and later that yr misplaced the custody of her sons.

When Britney refused to relinquish custody of her sons to Federline in January 2008, police needed to intervene.

She was later put in an involuntary psychiatric maintain underneath California state regulation and her father Jamie Spears was appointed by the courtroom as her conservator, a singular authorized association that offers another person full authority over one other particular person.

Stark mentioned that a part of the movie’s recognition is that the pandemic has made folks wish to be kinder to one another. “I think we’re all in this place where we never know what another person is going through. Part of the popularity might have to do with that,” she mentioned.

In current years, Jamie Spears’ conservatorship has attracted negativity amongst followers of the “Baby One More Time” and “Toxic” singer. They have began a #FreeBritney motion, demanding that she be given management over her life.

Using intensive archival footage and interviews, “Framing Britney Spears” explores the motion earlier than inspecting the misogynistic approach she was handled on the peak of her fame. It seems to be at her run-ins with the paparazzi and her relationships, together with with Timberlake who used their break up in his hit music “Cry Me a River”.

Timberlake issued an apology after the documentary aired.

Has the lens modified within the submit #MeToo period? “I think there’s something about putting it all together that made you realise how misogynistic it was more than when it’s on TV here or there, which is the power of documentary. But all of these interviews and everything we showed in our archival footage was on TV before and no one had this reaction, so I do think that there’s a difference,” Stark mentioned in response.

The pop star herself will not be part of the documentary. “I had a lot of ethical conflicts making this film without Britney participating. And the way I kind of ended up being able to justify it to myself is to never assume what was going on in Britney’s head. That was kind of what our team agreed to, that in our editing and even in the way we talked about her, we wouldn’t assume what was going on in her head,” the director mentioned.

There is cultural reckoning taking place round ladies who have been handled poorly within the ’90s and 2000s, and Britney is the largest identify in that sphere, mentioned Stark. The movie was the thought of Liz Day, a senior editor on the New York Times who additionally seems in it.

“There’s kind of this trend here of revisiting women who were treated poorly in the 90s and 2000s — Monica Lewinsky, Tonya Harding. There was kind of this look back happening and she was like Britney Spears is the ultimate one,” mentioned Stark, referring to White House intern Lewinsky and skater Harding each of whom have been the centre of paparazzi curiosity and scandal.

“So we started doing research and got our team together and then we realised that not only was Britney treated misogynistically in media coverage, she’s actually in this conservatorship where her father controls all of her money and most of her life, which makes this (documentary) extra meaningful,” Stark added.

The #FreeBritney activists have been dismissed as “conspiracy theorists” by the famous person’s father however Stark mentioned these behind the movie needed to take it significantly as a result of it highlighted “important systemic issues”. “And now you see there are a lot more people who are really taking it seriously,” she mentioned.

After the documentary aired, the probate decide dismissed objections by Jamie Spears concerning the co-conservatorship association. Through her court-mandated lawyer, the singer, who’s on a piece hiatus, has mentioned she now not needs her father to be answerable for her conservatorship.

She needs  “a qualified corporate fiduciary” to deal with her property.