{"id":16279,"date":"2021-03-05T20:11:24","date_gmt":"2021-03-06T01:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/online.berklee.edu\/takenote\/?p=16279"},"modified":"2025-12-02T17:07:37","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T22:07:37","slug":"framing-britney-spears-what-it-teaches-us-about-the-disparity-between-male-and-female-performers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/online.berklee.edu\/takenote\/framing-britney-spears-what-it-teaches-us-about-the-disparity-between-male-and-female-performers\/","title":{"rendered":"Framing Britney Spears: What it Teaches Us about the Disparity between Male and Female Performers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How Media Narratives Reveal Longstanding Gender Bias in the Treatment of Pop Stars and How Framing Britney Spears<\/em> Brings This into Focus<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When I was six years old, I traded my Princess Jasmine Barbie doll for Britney Spears\u2019 Oops! … I Did It Again<\/em> album at a sleepover. When my dad picked me up the next morning, I slid the disc into his car\u2019s CD player, and heard the unmistakable \u201cyeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah\u201d come through the speakers. That was when I realized it was mine to own now, and I could listen whenever I wanted. Britney was the talk of the town in my first grade class, and now I had a piece of what everyone was raving about. 
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For the next few months I replayed that purple CD over and over again on my boom box, but pretty soon the inevitable elementary school backlash hit and I realized that it wasn\u2019t cool to like Britney anymore. \u201cShe sings through her nose,\u201d \u201cshe lip-syncs,\u201d \u201cshe\u2019s too promiscuous,\u201d were comments I heard from the friends and adults in my life. I decided I no longer wanted to associate myself with this \u201cshameful\u201d Britney Spears, so I swapped out Oops! \u2026 I Did it Again<\/em> in my boombox for some *edgier* music: Avril Lavigne\u2019s debut album Let Go<\/em>. She was more of a tomboy, a guy\u2019s girl, which I thought was more acceptable. 
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Then the only way I kept up with Britney was through quick glances at tabloids in the grocery store checkout line, and whatever gossip I could gather from my classmates. And it was more of the same bad rap she\u2019d been getting at my school. I knew Britney was a \u201cslut\u201d because she cheated on Justin Timberlake, she was a \u201cbad mom\u201d because she drove with her baby on her lap, and she was \u201ccrazy\u201d because she shaved her head and beat the paparazzi with an umbrella. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After seeing the New York Times<\/em> documentary Framing Britney Spears<\/a><\/em>, 20 years after I was first introduced to her album at that sleepover, these markers in her career started to reveal the truths behind the ugly narratives I was told as a young girl. It\u2019s hard not to wince now, watching her interviews with Diane Sawyer<\/a> and Matt Lauer, because with the passage of time we see so much more clearly this picture of a woman who was being served up by the media as a \u201chot mess\u201d when her mental health was clearly suffering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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