Britney Spears Doc Sparks Re-Examination of Celebrity: ‘The World Has Finally Woken Up’

A new documentary about Britney Spears has sparked interest in how the media juggernaut treated her as she struggled at the peak of her fame as well as the pop star’s legal struggle over a court-mandated conservatorship. “Framing Britney Spears,” airing on Hulu, has catapulted the star’s name and fan base back into the headlines, even as she remains under the control of her father, Jamie, in a conservatorship that stretches back 13 years. But a sharp focus has also been trained on how Spears was treated by everyone from famous interviewers to tabloid editors to boyfriends, as she was ridiculed for her public meltdowns and mocked without regard for her mental health. “The rules of engagement were considered considerably different at that point,” Robert Thompson, a professor at Syracuse University specializing in television, radio, film and pop culture, told TheWrap. He compared her to other figures like Monica Lewinsky who were publicly shamed in the tabloid press. “The idea that these women who had been used and manipulated by lots of other people in power were really taken as an open season for punchlines and the fact that they were young and by conventional standards attractive made it even...

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