Overdue thoughts on the Britney documentary and the state of "Project Rose"
It’s been over a month since The New York Times Presents documentary Framing Britney Spears debuted on Hulu and FX.
In a lot of ways, I’ve been waiting for this moment since 2016 when my distrust of Britney Spears’ team became radicalized following an incident on The Jonathan Ross Show, when Britney (allegedly) attempted to discuss her now-13-year-long conservatorship during an interview and was stopped from doing so with her entire attempt cut from the interview’s official broadcast. If Britney isn’t allowed to speak on the circumstances of her own life, what are those preventing her from doing so trying to hide?
Since word of this incident caught my attention, researching the conservatorship of Britney Spears has become somewhat of a hobby of mine–albeit a depressing one. With Framing Britney blowing up to the degree that it has, of course I’ve had thoughts on all this.
First off, I can’t deny a small amount of an “I told you so” attitude within myself. As much as I hate reading my own writing, I did go back to my two previous posts on the matter of Britney Spears’ conservatorship and it’s not lost on me that much of what the NYT documentary discussed, I had already been bringing up in my own writing months before. Of course, I don’t think my takes were all that unique and doubt anything I’ve ever written would be on the radar of an outlet like The New York Times, but it’s worth noting that nothing Framing Britney discussed (with the exception of a few statements from insiders like Felicia Culotta, Britney’s former assistant, or Kim Kaiman, Britney’s former manager) is new. Plenty of viewers have voiced shock at seeing all that Britney went through–both pre- and post-conservatorship–however, for those of us paying attention before February of this year, Framing Britney was nothing but a brief overview of shit #FreeBritney supporters have been vocalizing since April of 2019 at the latest.
Long-time #FreeBritney supporters are now stuck between two mindsets: relieved Britney’s situation is starting to get the attention it’s always deserved and frustrated it took so long (13 years) to get here.
There’s an additional frustration as well: while Framing Britney helped put attention on Britney’s strange situation, the focus of that attention is becoming shifted to some less-than-productive places, as the documentary’s “framing” put a large emphasis on much of the events that preceded Brit’s now 13-year-long conservatorship. That’s a fair angle I think (I did something similar in July of 2020), and the outpouring of apologies to Britney (from both average social media users as well as celebrities like Justin Timberlake and Sarah Silverman) have been encouraging and heartwarming to watch; however the topic of how the media and public treated Britney pre-2008 has begun dominating the #FreeBritney conversation so much that the issue of actually *freeing* Britney from her conservatorship has taken somewhat of a backseat. Following the documentary, some of Britney’s biggest celebrity “supporters” have merely commented on the mistreatment of Britney by the media without mentioning the on-going legal removal of her rights:
Fans are frustrated that so many people, especially people with such large platforms, seem to be missing the point of the documentary and the #FreeBritney movement as a whole.
Kim Kardashian’s response, in particular, hits a sore spot for #FreeBritney supporters due to Kim’s ties with Lou Taylor, a former business manager of Britney’s who has long been alleged to have direct ties to the conservatorship, even at its inception.
This circles back to a criticism I and many others involved in #FreeBritney have of Framing Britney Spears and the media circus that now surrounds it.
I’ll say upfront that I think the documentary was well made, good-intentioned, and has done more to progress the #FreeBritney movement than fans have been able to do on their own since the podcast, Britney’s Gram, first uploaded their #FreeBritney episode in April of 2019. The documentary is a much-needed advertisement for #FreeBritney, drawing the general public’s attention onto an issue that’s somehow flown under the radar for over a decade.
That still leaves room for what I think #FreeBritney needs most: a major piece of investigative journalism looking at all the claims Britney stans have been trying to sort through for the last two years, including and especially the involvement of Lou Taylor and Tri Star Entertainment.
There’s some hope on this front. Republican house representative, Matt Gaetz*, has recently brought the issue of guardianship abuse to congress, referencing the conservatorship of Britney Spears and the #FreeBritney movement as motivators in this decision and expressing interest in having Britney testify before congress.
What all that will turn into, I don’t know. Interest in the topic of conservatorship abuse is likely peaking now with Britney as its poster-child due to her immense celebrity and some positive changes–for Britney and all those currently under the legal restraints of guardianships–could come from this, but given the apathy this subject has been treated with in the past, it’s not hard to imagine #FreeBritney becoming a trending topic for a few months before the issue gets swept back under the rug and fans receive another outtake from Glory as a consolation prize amidst continued injustice.
I do have some hope–we’re closer now to getting a real, impartial investigation into Britney’s conservatorship than ever before–but my reluctance to celebrate this progress comes from the same uncertainty that’s complicated my entire relationship with #FreeBritney since its start. I have always supported #FreeBritney and an impartial investigation into Britney Spears’ current circumstance, but that support has always been shadowed by an awareness that I still don’t know what Britney Spears, the person, wants my support to look like.
I already cited the Jonathan Ross interview as a moment of radicalization for me into a #FreeBritney mindset and that’s for a specific reason: for years after the conservatorship of Britney Spears was put into place, it was obvious that Britney wasn’t being fully open about her life in the press. Despite being in such a controversial legal arrangement, the state of Britney’s conservatorship was just not something she ever discussed and for the first eight years that didn’t ring too many alarm bells: Britney spent most of the life, including a portion of her adolescence, having her privacy violated for the masses’ speculations and entertainment, so of course she doesn’t want to talk about her conservatorship or relationship with her family in interviews. The incident on The Jonathan Ross Show, where multiple audience members report her mentioning the conservatorship but being forced to change topics, was the first real indication fans had that Britney was, as Oprah would put it, not silent but silenced. Yes, we’ve seen Britney doing “interviews” over the last 13 years, but even the circumstances of these raise suspicions for hardcore Britney fans.
We know from court documents that Britney “welcomes and appreciates the informed support of her many fans,” but we can never be sure what support goes over the line for her into territories of privacy invasion until Britney has the full right to tell us directly for herself.
This is what places Framing Britney Spears and every other rumored “#FreeBritney documentary” (most notably, an apparently confirmed film for Netflix) into murky territory of exploitation.
In this post-#MeToo era, entertainment media has become an asset for many survivors in sharing their stories of abuse. Men like Woody Allen and R. Kelly have gone to great lengths to repress the stories of their victims, but documentaries like Allen v. Farrow and Surviving R. Kelly help shine a spotlight not only onto the accusations of abuse made public years prior without much consequence, but onto the institutions that benefit from keeping victims silent.
These pieces are important, but at times watching the stories of sexual abuse survivors being turned into morbid entertainment for the masses can feel a bit icky. Maybe audiences need circumstances of abuse to be presented to them as sensational stories to feel compelled into taking action, but it’s a sad reality that women even have to transform their trauma into an interesting narrative just to be taken seriously. Especially when tactics of dramatization are employed, some efforts to expose injustice feel more like trauma porn than actual activism–case in point, the Lifetime documentary, Wendy Williams: What a Mess!, which literally teases the reveal of Wendy Williams’ rapist as a cliff-hanger before cutting to commercial.
Framing Britney Spears and any upcoming #FreeBritney-related film or television series are even more complicated in their questionable status as exploitation due to the fact that Britney Spears herself can’t participate on her own behalf, at least not directly.
Following the premiere of Framing Britney, some fans have come to the conclusion that the documentary was actually “Project Rose,” a project Britney Spears has been teasing on her Instagram since September of 2020.
Britney herself describes “Project Rose” as a “personal photo project,” saying in her Instagram story that we would be “seeing way more of Project Rose in the future.”
Of course, the vague claim immediately ignited a new handful of conspiracy theories as to what “Project Rose” really was. A quick Google search brought many fans to an organization fighting human trafficking. Some took this to mean that Britney was implying she’d been trafficked; others went further down the rabbit hole and claimed, due to the organization “Project ROSE” (ROSE: Reaching Out on Sexual Exploitation) having a mostly negative association as being anti-sex-worker, that Britney was actually trying to direct attention to how those claiming to “rescue” troubled women are often trying to regulate those women’s bodies without their consent, which I guess relates back to Britney’s conservators stepping in to “rescue” her and her estate following her infamous “breakdown”?
It was a lot but for the most part, “Project Rose” was a brief point of interest for #FreeBritney supporters as just another mystery that would likely never be solved.
Discussions of “Project Rose” popped up again with the premiere of Framing Britney Spears which backgrounded footage of its interviewees with hedges full of roses and ended the documentary with this video posted to Britney’s Instagram in July of 2020:
The theory was that Framing Britney Spears was Project Rose all along.
This has been somewhat dispelled by the creative leads behind Framing Britney but only somewhat, with director Samantha Stark telling Glamour,
“We filmed this entire thing during COVID; in order to be COVID safe, we had to film outside. If these interviews are going to be outside, I wanted that to be a motivated, stylistic decision. I didn’t want people randomly outside. I had been looking at Britney’s Instagram a lot, and I noticed Britney loves roses. There are so many posts with pictures of roses and also so many posts of her holding flowers. There’s also this greenery, backyard feel to a lot of her posts. I really wanted the documentary to live in the world of that. I had this rose wall built for the fans, because I was trying to make the amount of roses reflect their relationship to Britney. We did some interviews, and then Britney posted about Project Rose. That is the order of events. That’s what happened.”
When asked directly if Britney had any sort of “underground communication” with the filmmakers in which she gave them her support, the response was a little less clear-cut, with Stark being quoted, “We are not saying anything. I just told you the sequence of the events.”
I won’t allow myself to go too far into the various conspiracy theories, but given the participation of Felicia Culotta (Britney’s former assistant and longtime friend) in the documentary, I do believe there’s a possibility that Britney had an awareness of the film and its chosen decor around the time “Project Rose” was announced. Maybe it’s all a big coincidence, or maybe Britney really is using her Instagram to communicate with #FreeBritney supporters. Until Britney receives the right to tell us these things herself, we have no way of knowing. That lack of intel haunts the #FreeBritney movement as well as the Framing Britney documentary. Throughout the film, the narrative of Britney Spears’ life is being told by everyone–friends, former business associates, journalists, photographers, lawyers, fans. Everyone except, of course, Britney Spears.
As I’m writing this, #FreeBritney twitter is exploding following new leaks from Sam Lutfi, Britney’s former friend and “manager.” If you read my post about the events surrounding Britney’s infamous “breakdown,” you’ll know I don’t have many kind things to say about Sam Lutfi, the man who abused and allegedly drugged Britney during the worst of her 2007 emotional crisis.
While I’ll never vouch for Sam Lutfi’s character, it’s indisputable that he was a direct witness to much of the chaos of Britney’s now-on-going conservatorship. I’ll be looking into his new claims over the next few days but I don’t want to. I’m angered by the fact that I may play a part in potentially validating the word of one of Britney Spears’ (and others) abusers just to get to the bottom of what’s been going on inside her private life. It’s awful and especially tragic that none of this should be necessary when the one person at the center of this story still resides on this earth and seems to want to give her testimony herself. No supporter of Britney Spears should have to listen to Sam Lutfi’s perspective, but no supporter of Britney Spears currently has the ability to hear Britney’s perspective without the interference of those with questionable motives–whether it be Sam Lutfi trying to portray himself as a hero of Britney’s story, or documentary filmmakers trying to create a watchable drama out of her struggles.
I don’t fully believe that Framing Britney Spears is Project Rose, but of all the #FreeBritney conspiracy theories, it’s the one that tempts me the most–not because it has the most credence but because it gives Britney a level of agency I’ve been so craving for her to have ever since that fucking Jonathan Ross interview.
I have nothing substantial to say other than I hope things change for Britney soon and I hope we can all stop speculating on these allegations and conspiracy theories and sit back while Britney tells us her own story in her own words.
*Matt Gaetz was already a piece of shit for various reasons, but I wrote this before any of the current abuse and trafficking allegations surrounding him became widely public. Fuck that guy and please stop letting him speak at #FreeBritney rallies. He is not a champion for this movement, he is a calculated predator.