In the 2000s, at the height of the rise of reality TV, the media breathlessly described the lives of pop singer Britney Spears and socialite Paris Hilton. They were mainstays of the headlines and nighttime punchlines, constantly documented but rarely taken seriously.
“They were packaged in a consumer product,” says Allison Yarrow, the author of “90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality,” a book that reassessed Clinton-era newsmakers such as Lorena Bobbitt and Tonya Harding. .
But there was always more going on – and in recent days culture in general has been confronted with memories.
‘Framing Britney Spears’, a New York Times documentary that debuted on FX February 5, painted a disturbing portrait of her life under a court-sanctioned conservatory – examining 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 in the 1990s in a troubled youth setting – adding important context to the life of a woman who often was mocked by comedians and others shaping public opinion.
Hilton’s emotional testimony came a week after Evan Rachel Wood – the ‘Westworld’ actor whose relationship with Marilyn Manson became tabloid fodder in the late 2000s – wrote on Instagram that the musician ‘abused me horribly for years’ after nursing her as a teenager’ ‘. . Manson has denied Wood’s allegations.
The revelations about all three women seem to have sparked a wave of reassessments, leading many to rethink their perceptions and take into account the celebrity-loving culture that critics say objectified Spears, mocked Hilton and overlooked Manson’s history of troubling comments. saw.
“I think we used to allow a lot because of who got to tell the story and who had the power,” said Bea Arthur, a licensed therapist and expert in social psychology, adding that the mainstream media has often skewed to the point view of the “white father in the suburbs”.
In the days since ‘Framing Britney Spears’ premiered, Twitter has been inundated with old headlines and television clips that critics say show how the pop star, struggling with mental health issues, has fallen victim to the public, the press and the legal system. .
ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer has received particular attention for a 2003 interview with Spears that critics say was laced with sexism. In the interview, Sawyer appeared to defend the comments of the then Maryland first lady, who had said she wanted to “shoot” Spears, then 21. ABC News did not respond to a request for comment.
Matt Lauer, the former “TODAY” show host who was fired by NBC News in 2017 amid allegations of sexual misconduct, has also been criticized for a 2006 interview with Spears, featured in the documentary, in which he singer puts pressure on her “skills”. as a mother. Officials at NBC News declined to comment. (Lauer has denied the allegations of wrongdoing.)
Likewise, Wood’s post on Instagram was followed by renewed attention to Manson’s earlier comments. In a quote that resurfaced in several news articles about Wood’s allegations, Manson told Spider magazine in 2009 that he called her 158 times one day after a breakup.
“Every day I have fantasies about smashing her skull with a sledgehammer,” said Manson, who first met Wood when she was a teenager in his late thirties.
In response to inquiries from music magazine Metal Hammer, Manson’s representatives said last year that his comment to Spin was “clearly a theatrical rock star interview promoting a new record.”
In many ways, the reappraisal of these entertainment personalities is testament to a society that has been drastically reshaped by the #MeToo movement and, in general, is paying more attention to issues such as trauma, mental health, body shame and misogyny – and where these issues intersect with questions of identity.
“I think people thought that the lives of celebrities were meant to be consumed for entertainment, really erasing their humanity,” Arthur said.
“What’s happening now is a post-mortem,” Arthur added. ‘What have we done wrong? How have we failed these women? “
The impulse to investigate reality beneath the cultural rumor mill may have been amplified by #MeToo-era documentaries such as Lifetime’s “Surviving R. Kelly” about the R&B musician and HBO’s “Leaving Neverland” about Michael Jackson. (R. Kelly has denied allegations of sexual abuse. Jackson, who long confessed his innocence before his death in 2009, was cleared of child abuse charges in 2005.)
“We now have a generation where young people are much savvy media consumers and much more skeptical of the stories presented to them than I think teenagers were in the 1990s and early 2000s,” said Yarrow.
Yarrow added that a crucial difference between the media landscape of 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 makers.
Twitter and Instagram, in particular, are forums where average people can argue for high-profile figures they believe are being unfairly maligned – a phenomenon documented in “Framing Britney Spears.”
#FreeBritney, a social media campaign led by fans who believe Spears is effectively incarcerated by her conservatorship, is fueled in part by young people who feel a spiritual affinity with the popular artist and a deep empathy for her mental health challenges.
While many members of Gen Z were not alive or just babies when Spears first entered the pop culture scene in the late 1990s, members of Gen Z have found strength in Spears’ music and her life story.
When Daniel Read, 23, who lives outside of Coventry, England, was a child, his mother played pop music while she vacuumed. Then Read first heard the hit song “ Baby, One More Time, ” starting a lifelong affection for Spears.
“After 2007 I started to love her even more because I was being bullied at school at the time and of course you could see that she was going through all these things. I just thought she had so much strength to get through that, and I think it really helped me, ”said Read, who is part of the # FreeBritney movement on social media.
On TikTok, one of the major platforms where Gen Z humor, culture, and trends are shaped, the #BritneySpears hashtag has been viewed more than 1.6 billion times and the # FreeBritney hashtag over 421 million times. On Twitter, accounts of stans – ardent followers of pop stars – have started including the # FreeBritney hashtag in display names and profile bios.
While Spears’s support on social media is greater than Hilton’s, Hilton is still in the midst of an outburst. Many users on platforms like Twitter have thanked Hilton for not only opening up about her abuse but also testifying about it in a Utah court.
The way Gen Z has rallied behind Spears and Hilton could be linked to the generation’s openness to mental health issues and the likelihood that its members have been treated for such issues.
A 2018 report from the American Psychological Association reported that “Gen Z members are more attuned to their own mental health than previous generations,” and said Gen Z was the largest percentage of any generation receiving psychological help.
The social media culture has helped Gen Z to destigmatize these issues and reclaim conversations about mental health as a form of power, rather than a punch line. Young women on social media have also taken steps to destigmatize femininity, mental health issues and female sexuality.
“During my life it has been short, but there was no change in the way I felt until I got on the Internet and saw that people were authentically themselves. That gave me that push to be authentically myself, ”says Chrissy Chlapecka, 20, of Chicago, a TikTok creator with more than 2.4 million followers who creates sex-positive, anti-misogyny content that promotes the power of femininity.
Gen Z members say they hope these movements push society away from seeing women like Spears and Hilton as objects of derision and closer to a world where both they – and women like Wood – can be empowered to make their voices hear without fear of being stigmatized or overturned for their own careers.
“My generation looks at things and says, ‘Why? Why are we doing this? Why is it so? ‘We take everything, we question everything and we say,’ Oh, that’s bulls —. ‘ I think there is potential for a lot of change, ”said Chlapecka.