“There‘s a lot that people don’t know about me that I want them to know.” -- Britney Spears
Fragmented statements, awkward silences, and vague answers – these things are to be expected of MTV’s 2008 documentary ‘Britney: For the record’. In this 90 minute film, the pop icon’s life was chronicled for 60 days as she opt to provide normal sounding answers to the most intriguing questions about her ups and downs as a star and as an individual. The film’s also a clear example of how the people who market her are trying to take control over her image – how they want to uplift and make noise about Britney’s “comeback” and how Britney herself wanted to be seen in a “different light” by the public.
In the documentary, she talks about how the urge to rebel and be free is the thing which made her choose the decisions in the past and what caused her erratic behavior. When taken from a Freudian perspective, we can see the little things that she do – constantly chewing gums, biting her fingernails, tapping her toes, and many more – are implications of anxiety and are fixations which she have gotten from her childhood. Her impulsive behavior, which may be connected with the infamous head shaving incident, shows the instability of her emotional and rational side as a human being. The conflicts brought about by the failures of her relationships particularly with Kevin Federline and Justin Timberlake and the stress she gets from the hoards of non-stoppable fans and media that mob her anytime she walks into a public space are factors that contribute to her state and personality as of that time. We can also see how she cannot define clearly her own concept of the “self”, and how she cannot explain why she did certain things in the past which affected her present life greatly. She also mentioned that “art is therapy”, and by this, she means dancing. This instance also indicates the projection that she does with her feelings and subconscious emotions to something which is socially accepted and productive.
The fame and the constant attention, as seen by Britney, was a sort of an evil thing in her lifestyle. She mentioned the sentiments of being trapped by it, not being able to go anywhere with her kids without people mobbing them, and the lack of privacy in her life in general. When you are a celebrity and are sold as a commodity to the public, what do you expect? Truly, with fame and popularity comes a great price, and most of it are a human’s basic needs. It’s a breakdown of a person’s essential things in life – peace, privacy, friendship and so much more.
When asked what’s the best thing that makes me interested with Britney Spears, I can say that it’s her resilience to keep on walking and standing up despite of the many obstacles on her path. Subjectively, I see Britney as a good person, but she made decisions in her life which made her face consequences beyond her reach and beyond her emotional intelligence / quotient could manage.
However, we must not also forget that this documentary was made only a few months after Britney Spears’ initial recovery and at a time when she was obviously still going through the process of healing, introspection, and understanding her social identity. We can say that this film was made too soon, and perhaps it may be better if they put if off for some more time to give Britney a longer period of regaining what’s lost in her. It was probably the public’s demands to get more from her that made them push with this idea. Sadly, the American society, as shown by the recent happenings we see on the news and other kinds of media, has been transformed into a group of slaves of entertainment and pass time gossips.