The Britney Spears Memoir was an eyeopener to the public
Fans have speculated for years how Britney Spears was doing and, on some level, they were right. Britney was not okay, every aspect of her life was being controlled.
Britney Spears’s memoir titled,” The Woman in Me,” speaks about her conservatorship, loss of love, isolation, trying to be perfect and how so many people in her family contributed to her loss of freedom.
“The woman in me was pushed down for a long time,” wrote Spears.
Britney wants to tell her story; she wants her fans to know the truth about how she grew up. She grew up in a toxic household and although that’s not exclusive to her. Her father was the sole conservator for 13 years, but he was not the only one at fault, the media played a huge part in helping her father gain control over Britney.
Britney went from feeling like a child to feeling like a woman and back into a child. The struggle that the media attempted to portray was not accurate. We saw how the media treated her and some of us believed those lies too.
We thought of Britney as an alcoholic, druggie and just a hysterical woman. Britney’s struggle was internal and what the media shared with the world was just moments of when she was purposely provoked by them.
Jamie Lynn Spears had also grown up in the same home as Britney feeling fear and frustration with no way to escape their parents. Jamie Lynn ended up being another person who profited off of Britney’s inability to escape her father. Both Jamie Lynn and her mother, Lynne wrote books depicting Britney as an out-of-control celebrity.
Her image started out as America’s pop princess from the time she was 16 up into her early twenties. As the years went by and she turned into a young woman and started dating openly and expressing her sexuality in her performances, the media started to criticize her more.
In one instance Britney’s management team made her watch as people openly criticized her first VMA performance saying she was too sexy and was a bad influence on younger girls. It frustrated her to be criticized for becoming a woman and in turn made her feel like a child again.
Britney spoke openly about the sexism in the music industry, all the scrutiny of her body and how the men in her life failed her. The only people who never left her in the dark were her fans; they saved her. At the end of the day, Britney Spears was a teenager, a daughter, a sister and a woman just like many of us.
The Britney Economy kept many paparazzi in business and as a result, they were relentless in pursuing her just to get pictures to fit the hysterical woman image. They pushed her into a corner and she wanted to show them she was not going to be who they wanted her to be.
Britney’s wild time was a,” Fuck you. You want me to be your dream girl? Fuck you.”
Her book shows the reader the other side of the narratives we have all heard, such as the famous song “Cry Me a River” by Justin Timberlake painting Britney as a cheating woman and her famous pictures of her shaved head depicting her as a woman having a meltdown. It was not what it seemed and she was not guilty of being a crazy woman, it was all a misrepresentation by the media.
The book is an eyeopener to every single person who has followed her life in the media since 1998, after reading this memoir you will not see her the same. So many things you believe from the media will be disproved. She shared her story to show the world she was always a human being with feelings, not America’s perfect princess.
Britney is angry at everyone who contributed to her confinement but is trying hard to understand why she is grieving her loss of childhood and innocence and being sexualized. As a reader and a child who grew up watching Britney Spears being loved and judged so harshly at the same time, I too was fooled by the media. I have come to understand from Britney’s memoir that her side of the story was the truth.
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