In the 2000s, at the height of the reality show boom, the media breathlessly narrated the life of pop singer Britney Spears and socialite Paris Hilton. They were the pillars of tabloid headlines and early-morning jokes, documented constantly, but rarely taken seriously.
“They were packaged in a consumer product,” said Allison Yarrow, author of “90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality,” a book that reevaluates Clinton-era journalists like Lorena Bobbitt and Tonya Harding .
But there has always been more to this story – and in recent days, culture in general has encountered reminders.
“Framing Britney Spears,” a New York Times documentary that premiered on February 5 on FX, painted a worrying portrait of her life under court-sanctioned tutelage – and examined how the star’s public image was distorted by sexism and sensationalism of the news media.
Four days later, Paris Hilton described to Utah lawmakers the “daily” verbal, mental and physical abuse she said she suffered at an institution for troubled young people in the 1990s – adding an important context to the life of a woman who was often ridiculed by comedians and others who shape public opinion.
Hilton’s emotional testimony came a week after Evan Rachel Wood – the “Westworld” actor whose relationship with Marilyn Manson became a tabloid affair in the late 2000s – wrote on Instagram that the musician “horribly abused me for years” after “preparing it” as a teenager. Manson denied Wood’s claims.
The revelations about the three women appear to have spurred a wave of revaluations, causing many to reconsider their perceptions and consider the celebrity-passionate culture that critics say Spears aimed at, mocked Hilton and seemed to ignore the story of Manson’s disturbing comments.
“I think we used to allow a lot because of who told the story and who had the power,” said Bea Arthur, a licensed therapist and specialist in social psychology, adding that the mainstream media has always been focused on the subject from the ” suburban white father “.
Since the debut of “Framing Britney Spears”, Twitter has been inundated with old headlines and television clips that critics believe show how the pop star, who fights mental health problems, has been victimized by the public, the press and the legal system. .
ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer drew special attention to a 2003 interview with Spears that critics believe is linked to sexism. In the interview, Sawyer appeared to defend the comments of Maryland’s first lady at the time, who said she wanted to “shoot” Spears, then 21. ABC News did not respond to a request for comment.
Matt Lauer, the former host of the “TODAY” program who was fired by NBC News in 2017 amid accusations of sexual misconduct, also faced criticism for a 2006 interview with Spears, featured in the documentary, in which he presses the singer about her “mothering skills. ”NBC News officials declined to comment. (Lauer denied allegations of misconduct.)
Similarly, Wood’s Instagram post was followed by renewed attention in Manson’s earlier comments. In a quote that reappeared in several news articles about Wood’s allegations, Manson told Spin magazine in 2009 that he had called her 158 times the day after the breakup.
“I have fantasies every day about breaking her skull with a sledgehammer,” said Manson, who met Wood when she was a teenager and he was almost 30 years old.
In response to questions from the musical magazine Metal Hammer, Manson’s representatives said last year that his comment to Spin was “obviously a theatrical interview for a rock star promoting a new album.”
In many ways, the reevaluations of these entertainment personalities are testament to a society that has been dramatically reshaped by the #MeToo movement and, in general, pays more attention to issues of trauma, mental health, body shame and misogyny – and where these issues intersect with identity issues.
“I think people thought that celebrities’ lives were to be consumed as entertainment, which really erased their humanity,” said Arthur.
“What is happening now is an autopsy,” added Arthur. “What did we do wrong? How did we fail with these women?”
The urge to investigate the realities behind the cultural rumor may have been deepened by documentaries from the # MeToo era, such as Lifetime’s “Surviving R. Kelly” about the R&B musician and HBO’s “Leaving Neverland” about Michael Jackson. (R. Kelly denied the sexual abuse charges. Jackson, who long ago professed his innocence before his death in 2009, was acquitted of child sexual abuse charges in 2005).
“We have a generation now where young people are much more experienced consumers of the media and much more skeptical about the narratives presented to them than teenagers were in the 1990s and early 2000s,” said Yarrow.
Yarrow added that a crucial difference between the media landscape 20 years ago and today is that celebrities can “create their own personas” through social media platforms, undermining the influence of paparazzi photographers and other image creators.
Twitter and Instagram, in particular, are forums where ordinary people can defend high-profile figures who they believe are unjustly defamed – a phenomenon documented in “Framing Britney Spears”.
#FreeBritney, a social media campaign led by fans who believe Spears is effectively being arrested for her guardianship, was fueled in part by young people who feel a spiritual affinity for the popular artist and deep empathy for her mental health challenges.
Although many Generation Z members were not alive or were just babies when Spears first appeared on the pop culture scene in the late 1990s, Generation Z members found strength in Spears’ music and life story.
When Daniel Read, 23, who lives near Coventry, England, was a child, his mother used to play pop music while vacuuming. That was when Read first heard the hit track “Baby, One More Time”, beginning a lifelong affection for Spears.
“After 2007, I started to love her even more because at the time I was being bullied at school and obviously I could see that she was going through all these things. I thought she had a lot of strength to go through this and I think it really helped me, ”said Read, who is part of the #FreeBritney movement on social media.
On TikTok, one of the main platforms on which Gen Z humor, culture and trends are shaped, the hashtag #BritneySpears has been viewed more than 1.6 billion times and the hashtag #FreeBritney has been viewed more than 421 million times . On Twitter, accounts belonging to stans – fervent followers of pop stars – began to include the hashtag #FreeBritney in display names and profile biographies.
Although Spears’ support on social media is greater than that of Hilton, there has still been a demonstration by Hilton as well. Many users on platforms like Twitter thanked Hilton not only for opening up about her abuse, but also for testifying about it in a Utah court.
The way Generation Z teamed up with Spears and Hilton may be linked to the generation’s openness to mental health problems and the likelihood that its members have received treatment for those problems.
A 2018 report by the American Psychological Association reported that “Generation Z members are more attuned to their own mental health than previous generations”, and said that Generation Z constituted the highest percentage of any generation that receives psychological help.
The social media culture has helped Gen Z to de-stigmatize these issues and recover conversations about mental health as a form of power, rather than a joke. Young women on social media have also made progress in destigmatizing femininity, mental health challenges and female sexuality.
“In my life, it is short, but there was no change in the way I felt until I went online and saw people being authentically themselves. It gave me that impulse to be authentically myself, ”said Chrissy Chlapecka, 20, of Chicago, a creator of TikTok with over 2.4 million followers who makes sexually positive and anti-misogynistic content, promoting the power of femininity.
Generation Z members say they expect these movements to move society away from seeing women like Spears and Hilton as objects of ridicule and closer to a world where they – and women like Wood – can have the power to speak without fear of being stigmatized. or taking down their own careers.
“My generation is looking at things and thinking, ‘Why? Why are we doing this? Because it’s like this?’ We are taking everything, questioning everything and saying, ‘Oh, this is bullshit —.’ I think there is potential for many changes, ”said Chlapecka.