Britney Spears‘s memoir is each a horror story and a cautionary story. There’s loads to remove from it, however at its core, it is a story a few girl whose bodily autonomy was primarily stripped from her at a younger age — by her mother and father, by the media, by her companions, and by the world at giant.
“The Woman in Me” is unquestionably Spears’s story, however it’s additionally a narrative that is been repeated in numerous kinds many occasions earlier than. After studying it, sitting in a state of semi-shock whereas digesting the horrors Spears went via, I discovered myself considering of Andrew Dominik’s nightmarish 2022 movie, “Blonde,” which portrays a dramatized model of Marilyn Monroe’s life. That movie arguably exploited Monroe’s legacy and repeated a number of the identical errors it tried to criticize, however it additionally tells the story of a lady whose look was commodified and profited off of to the purpose that it broken her irreparably.
“There’s a motive why ladies who misbehave are so typically became witches, Jezebels, sirens, Medusas, and different monstrous creatures, and Spears’s phrases remind us of the age-old observe of associating deviant femininity with monstrosity.”
But whereas each “Blonde” and “The Woman in Me” inform the story of ladies whose our bodies have been consistently utilized by each the general public and the lads of their lives, Spears’s memoir is a much better rendition of the same narrative, as a result of it is her personal. Like so many individuals who’ve lived via comparable experiences, Monroe could now not be capable of inform her personal story, however now that we’ve Spears’s in her personal phrases, we might all do effectively to take heed to what she has to say.
And quite a lot of what she says is tough to listen to. From the start, Spears’s memoir traces ways in which her rights to her personal physique and personhood have been commodified, criticized, and stripped away. The first headlines to return out concerning the ebook detailed an abortion that Spears says she underwent whereas she was courting Justin Timberlake, which she says wasn’t her alternative.
“If it had been left as much as me alone, I by no means would have finished it,” she writes. “And but Justin was so positive that he did not need to be a father.” The expertise, which she describes as “agonizing,” is a vital reminder that really free, equitable abortion entry means permitting ladies to decide on whether or not or not they need to get abortions, not forcing them to make a sure alternative a method or one other. From begin to end, Spears’s memoir particulars the terrible penalties of what can occur when alternative is taken away many occasions over.
It’s not information that Spears’s look was consistently managed and exploited by others over the course of her profession. During her rise within the wilderness of the early 2000s, when thinness was all the trend and girls have been anticipated to by some means each be extremely sexual but additionally candy and demure — although that arguably that hasn’t modified — Spears was each extremely sexualized and demonized for it.
“The Woman in Me” additionally explores simply how a lot of Spears’s profession, look, and decisions weren’t truly hers to make in any respect. In her memoir, she claims that she was utterly blindsided by her well-known interview with Diane Sawyer — who accused her of getting “upset quite a lot of moms on this nation,” and referred to as her abs “essentially the most useful sq. inch of actual property within the leisure universe,” to call a number of the interview’s many slights.
But Spears was nonetheless coping with the fallout of her and Timberlake’s breakup when she was knowledgeable by her father that she would converse to Sawyer. “I felt like I had been exploited, arrange in entrance of the entire world,” writes Spears. “That interview was a breaking level for me internally — a change had been flipped. I felt one thing darkish come over my physique. I felt myself turning, virtually like a werewolf, right into a Bad Person.”
There’s a motive why ladies who misbehave are so typically became witches, Jezebels, sirens, Medusas, and different monstrous creatures, and Spears’s phrases remind us of the age-old observe of associating deviant femininity with monstrosity. So typically, ladies who do not comply or align with the world’s typically unimaginable requirements typically find yourself demonizing themselves, too, which Spears clearly did at this level, unable to forgive herself for being forcibly contorted into somebody she did not acknowledge.
The nightmare was solely starting for Spears, although. Most of us know the info of what occurred subsequent by now — Spears had two youngsters with Kevin Federline, however misplaced custody of them in 2008. She was then all however compelled right into a residency in Las Vegas, which additionally hearkens to a different story of an exploited megastar, solely this time named Elvis Presley. Pushed right into a Vegas residency by his corrupt supervisor, Elvis spiraled into dependancy and sickness whereas compelled to carry out the identical present again and again on a Las Vegas stage. (Of course, Elvis exercised his personal management over his spouse, Priscilla, which is yet one more instance of how exploitation and ache can ripple from one individual to a different, affecting many lives within the course of.)
“Ultimately, the memoir can be a cautionary story. It’s additionally a reminder of the truth that many individuals with far fewer assets and fewer help than Spears additionally presently discover themselves in conservatorships, or in prisons, or in any other case exploitative conditions, typically based mostly on arbitrary errors, dangerous luck, and systemic marginalization.”
Spears’s Las Vegas residency was additionally the start of an unimaginable interval of her life. While nonetheless performing for hundreds of individuals, she was compelled to enter a conservatorship, which subjected her to fixed scrutiny and never-ending management. She claims that her father took full possession of her funds in addition to what she put into her physique, controlling all the pieces she ate, banning all medicines together with Tylenol and vitamin dietary supplements and consistently criticizing her physique and calling her fats day in and time out. Her staff would additionally inform potential companions of her sexual historical past, and she or he was not allowed to have extra youngsters. Her physique, as soon as once more, was not hers — solely this time, its outsourcing was all cosigned by the regulation.
The most horrifying facet of the ebook by far particulars Spears’s journey right into a hellish rehab facility, which she claims she was despatched to after she tried to vary a number of the choreography in her Las Vegas present. Once there, she claims she was not allowed to wash in personal, needed to give blood weekly, wasn’t allowed to make use of the web, needed to sleep together with her door open, and was forcibly placed on lithium. From the sounds of issues, each scrap of management of her physique was taken from her there. Eventually, Spears says she started believing her household was making an attempt to kill her, and studying her story, it isn’t onerous to grasp why.
Throughout the ebook, Spears additionally consistently particulars the people-pleasing tendencies that led her to go together with the entire above. All she ever needed, she consistently reiterates, was to be good and to make the individuals in her life — and finally the entire world — glad. But it was by no means sufficient; she by no means had an opportunity of being sufficient. At the tip of “The Woman in Me,” Spears appears to succeed in an understanding of this as she particulars her new way of living. She now not desires to deal with music. Instead, she finally desires her life to be her personal.
And but nonetheless, even at the moment, her life is up for public consumption, and her each transfer continues to be stalked by photographers and the general public. On Instagram, she posts often, typically sharing photographs of herself bare, and people have generated criticism as effectively. But as a lady whose physique has been so exploited, displaying her pores and skin on her personal phrases appears like her try at a reclamation, similar to shaving her head was: a protest in opposition to the entire individuals who profited off of her physique and managed its each transfer, and a prepared embrace of what has been labeled monstrous as a type of discovering liberation.
Nowadays, critics of her Instagram apart, it does appear to be Spears has reclaimed her story. Her each transfer is now not so scrutinized, and she or he has many loving supporters who’ve fought onerous for her freedom and her proper to reside her life the best way she desires. Still, her story is just not a wholly triumphant one. After the memoir’s launch, Spears lamented her story’s remedy within the media on Instagram, writing that “my motive for this ebook was to not harp on my previous experiences which is what the press is doing and it is dumb and foolish !!! I’ve moved on since then !!!” in a screenshot. While one would hope that Spears really needed to write down the memoir and that she instructed her story on her phrases, it is in the end unimaginable to understand how a lot of it was ghostwritten, or how she actually feels about her story being aired for the world to dissect as soon as once more, which provides one other layer of complexity to the entire story.
Ultimately, the memoir can be a cautionary story. It’s additionally a reminder of the truth that many individuals with far fewer assets and fewer help than Spears additionally presently discover themselves in conservatorships, or in prisons, or in any other case exploitative conditions, typically based mostly on arbitrary errors, dangerous luck, and systemic marginalization.
In a submit–Roe v. Wade world, Spears’s story can be an extremely pressing reminder of the significance of permitting ladies, and all individuals, to have autonomy over their very own our bodies — to have the ability to change them or allow them to be in a approach that feels true to them, not anybody else.
It’s additionally a reminder to look lengthy and onerous at our personal impulse to manage different individuals based mostly on arbitrary magnificence requirements or different conventions. We would do effectively to recollect Spears’s story the following time a significant star appears to be struggling a breakdown within the public eye, or the following time the web chooses somebody to destroy based mostly on their look or just out of spite. And in fact, we might do effectively to verify our impulses to show ladies, specifically, into monsters, particularly when they’re merely being human.