The scrutiny that Britney Spears continues to undergo might not be as “intense” as it was in the early and mid-2000s, but that hardly means it’s stopped. In the end, it’s just taken on a different form (and format). Even after she was “freed” from her conservatorship (though certain sects argue that she’s still being puppeteered or, perhaps even worse, replaced by a body double), the intentness with which people, both fans and critics alike, persist in studying her every literal move has simply evolved into engaging in such dissection via Instagram. This being the very entity through which the #FreeBritney movement was able to interpret some of her videos and photos as a cry for help.
But in the now four years since she was released from her conservatorship, it seems few are willing to let up on insisting she’s still “crying for help.” This assertion coming primarily from the condemnation of her standard breed of posting: crudely edited videos (so crude, in fact, that the InShot watermark is almost always visible) that parade her dancing and twirling about in some lately unknowable location.
In the past year, however, that “unknowable” location has often been Mexico (though conspiracy theorists might argue otherwise). For a while there, it was French Polynesia and Hawaii that kept calling her back (on a private jet, of course). Wherever she happens to be, though, Spears always finds a room to dance and twirl about in. Just as she used to in the music videos that made her so beloved (see: “…Baby One More Time,” “Oops!…I Did It Again,” “Stronger,” “I’m A Slave 4 U,” “Overprotected,” et al.). This includes dressing in barely-there attire or, to wield another common phrase, being “scantily clad.” Sometimes, she’ll even throw in a bit of non sequitur dialogue (frequently in a British accent, a go-to affectation of hers since the mid-00s) to add some even campier flair. Or just as a way to further fuck with people for shits and giggles.
Alas, when she does the same thing she used to—the same thing that made her all those millions her family stole from her—in the present day, it gets her nothing but mockery. More to the point, venomous ridicule. Such a reaction isn’t only a result of the blatant ageism at play here, entailing that a woman should “cover up” and “act her age” once she enters her forties (even though, lately, a woman’s thirties have been fair game for acting like a total Charli XCX-inspired “city sewer slut”). But, as Britney herself said on her forty-first birthday, “I’m not turning 41 … I’m turning 12.” While this, in part, was symptomatic of Spears regressing/retreating to her “safe age,” it’s also a result of the thirteen years’ worth of independence that was robbed from her. These thirteen years being the final in her “youth era.” And, as Taylor Swift would say (on “So Long, London”), “And I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free.”
Because it was for free, with Spears never seeing a dime of her own hard-earned money. The money she was constantly flashing and shaking her ass for onstage and in music videos. Yet now, when she does so purely for her own sense of pleasure and joy, and because it’s done for no profit, these acts she was once, in essence, forced to do are no longer a source of entertainment for people, but, instead, a source of “concern.” What they can’t seem to understand about themselves is that their contempt for what she’s doing is more about the “audacity” of being so free. So unburdened and unmotivated by money. Yet most are still scratching their heads about why Spears is “just doing random shit” without bothering to focus on “getting her career back on track.” Because heaven forbid she should do anything that wasn’t “profitable.”
But maybe to her, dancing for the thrill of it is profitable. On an emotional level. After all, it was Spears who once said that there are some movements in dance that feel, to her, like getting in touch with a form of spirituality, that some of these movements can make her feel more healed than any therapy session. As such, it’s no wonder she’s dancing seemingly more than ever: she’s been through a fuck ton of trauma that needs to be exorcised, one way or another. And it seems no one in her personal life is willing to help in such matters, least of all her own sons (who come across as decidedly less supportive than, say, Pamela Anderson’s).
Jayden, her youngest, appears particularly insensitive, at least in the errant videos during which he’s weighed in on his mother, reducing her to a cash cow in an Instagram Live video circa 2020 when he commented, “I remember one time I asked her, ‘Mom, what happened to your music?’ And she was like, ‘I dunno honey I think I might just quit it.’ I was like, ‘What? What are you saying? You know how much bank you make off that?’” But does Jayden know how much heartache she “made off that” too? Does anyone?
Only Spears herself can say, and it looks as though her answer lies in vehemently refusing to ever make music again. Even though the rumors about her “grand return” to the studio continue to swirl all the time (along with how she’s going to show up to perform a medley at the VMAs this year). In early 2024, the fever pitch surrounding such rumors reached a point where Spears felt obliged to comment (as usual, on Instagram), “They keep saying I’m turning to random people to do a new album… I will never return to the music industry!!!” And people ought to take that declaration to heart. Oh sure, she might offer up a random “project” here and there (e.g., that unforeseen Balenciaga “collab”), but the idea of Spears ever giving her all for an audience based on the “incitement” of money seems increasingly far-fetched. No, she would much rather give her all for free on Instagram most every day. And yet, these bitches can’t appreciate the fact that she’s even “being public” at all after everything that happened to her.
To be sure, most people who endured what Spears did would not only “pull a Garbo” and recoil from public life entirely, but they might more than likely end up institutionalized. And, in truth, that’s what people still want to do to Britney just because she’s “insane” enough not to want to wield her passions for money anymore. Since, clearly, that got her so far on the mental health and well-being front so far. But no, Spears is revealing, with every dancing and twirling post, just what it is to be free: to not be worried about “monetizing” one’s talent.
[…] Britney Spears Is Ultimately Being Criticized For Not Doing Something for Money […]