The ceaseless forms in which Britney Spears’ primary breakdown of 2007—the one where she shaved her head seemingly “on a whim” at a Tarzana hair salon—continues to endure in pop culture is nothing if not a testament to the countless ways that she’s been done dirty. Even those who, in their way, are trying to show some kind of “love” for Spears end up hurting her by mentioning this incident in a casual sort of manner. And one usually designed to refer to their level of “insanity” at a particular moment. As Lola Young does on her breakout hit of 2024, “Messy.”
Twenty-three at the time of the song’s release, she was two years younger than Britney when the latter had her first very public breakdown (even though it was arguably another incident in 2006, after nearly tripping and falling while holding Sean Preston and being pregnant with Jayden James, that a “breakdown” a.k.a. natural reaction to the chaos around her was documented ad nauseam by the paparazzi when she sat down in a restaurant and started to cry). So perhaps Lola is still too, er, young (which, yes, feels like a play on her last name) to understand just how horrible that was for Spears. How it truly signaled the beginning of the end of her autonomy.
What’s more, perhaps being of that questionable generation, Z (you know, the one that views 9/11 as nothing more than a meme), Young can’t fully understand the damage that was done, having not witnessed the media frenzy surrounding Spears firsthand (she would have been about six years old during this nadir in Spears’ life). Which perhaps makes it easier for Young to reduce what happened to Spears with a line in “Messy” that goes, “I pull a Britney every other week.” The implication being, of course, that Young is “schizo” and “crazy” and “erratic” with her behavior, just like Spears circa the mid-2000s. In 2024, one might have foolishly thought this type of narrative around Spears would have fallen by the wayside as a result not only of Gen Z’s supposed “wokeness” compared to previous generations (though clearly not, based on a recent study about how Gen Z blokes think their wives should “obey” them), but also because everyone was so “obsessed” with treating her better after watching the ultimately “nothing to write home about” Framing Britney Spears. And it was nothing to write home about because all of this was information that people were well-aware of already.
But, evidently, it took what amounted to a seventy-four-minute clip show of all the worst things that were said and done to Spears to make people fully grasp just how fuzzy her end of the lollipop had been for most of the 2000s (and up to the present, thanks to her then seemingly interminable conservatorship). An era in her life that Spears herself didn’t much appreciate having dredged up again, based on her comment at the time, “I didn’t watch the documentary but from what I did see of it I was embarrassed by the light they put me in.”
Indeed, Spears is still made to feel constantly embarrassed by things that happened, at this point, so long ago. And things that were done during a period in her existence when most everyone is known for making a mistake or two (or five hundred). Mistakes that can primarily be chalked up to “youthful folly” and the desire to be reckless that’s inherent to being twenty-something (just ask fellow victim of mixing in-your-twenties partying with the 00s paparazzi frenzy, Lindsay Lohan). In a sense, maybe it can be argued that Young choosing to wield such a line about Spears could also be chalked up to this form of youthful recklessness as well. A kind of careless approach to songwriting that totally discounts the potential fallout “Messy” might have not only on Spears’ feelings, but on a longstanding reputation she just can’t seem to shake.
A reputation that was once again reiterated when Spears was arrested on March 4th for “suspicion of driving under the influence.” Naturally, many headlines ensued the following morning. Headlines that echoed the kind of schadenfreude that was so prevalent for Spears in the 2000s. And yes, of course, there was a chorus of voices insisting that a DUI arrest was but the culmination of the major “error” of having “released” Spears from her conservatorship in 2021. That if she were still under the control of her money-grubbing family, this wouldn’t have happened. Well, of course not—for Spears was scarcely permitted to drive her own car around, let alone have access to the money she made through grueling years of hard work and commitment.
The pratfalls of being a “free” woman—though still consistently harassed and harangued by outside forces—came, once again, with the risk of making a mistake. One that, in this case, mimicked familiar territory. The kind of territory that would only validate someone like Young breezily commenting that she “pulls a Britney every other week.” Never mind that a primary driving force behind so much of Spears’ “crazy” behavior was (and is) a direct result of both the paparazzi and her family. The latter swooping in again to “save” Spears from herself—this done, oh so conveniently, after the fresh multimillion-dollar sale of her music catalogue. To be sure, it all smacks of the same conspiracy to get her under their control again à la 2008 so that they can dip back into those millions and keep claiming that Spears isn’t “fit” to spend them herself.
Besides, thanks to prevailing allusions to her “madness,” like Young’s “Messy,” it’s not as if Spears’ image has ever truly recovered in the eyes of the public (try as Cardi B might to help with a more positive lyric about the singer like, “I’m sexy dancin’ in the house, I feel like Britney Spears”). Which, unfortunately, only works to the Spears family’s benefit. And, of course, the patriarchy at large.
+ There are no comments
Add yours