The New York Times is releasing a documentary special on Britney’s conservatorship (and the #FreeBritney movement) called “Framing Britney Spears.”The documentary will stream on FX on Hulu on February 5, 2021.
Here’s more info about it and the official trailer:
Her rise was a global phenomenon. Her downfall was a cruel national sport. People close to Britney Spears and lawyers tied to her conservatorship now reassess her career as she battles her father in court over who should control her life.
The meteoric rise and disturbing fall of Britney Spears has devolved into a Kafkaesque court battle that has reawakened her fandom and raised pressing questions about mental health and an individuals’ rights.
The New York Times Presents: Framing Britney Spears re- examines her career and offers a new assessment of the movement rallying against her court-mandated conservatorship, capturing the unsavory dimensions of the American pop-star machine.
The series is executive produced by Jason Stallman, Sam Dolnick, Stephanie Preiss from The New York Times, and Ken Druckerman, Banks Tarver and Mary Robertson from Left/Right.
Britney Is ‘Capable’ of Being a Free Woman: Speaking out for the first time in years, Culotta admits in the documentary that she “didn’t then nor do I now understand what a conservatorship is.” That said, taking Britney’s age and accomplishments into consideration, her former assistant says she knows “firsthand [what Britney is] capable of.”
Jamie Was Not as Present as Lynne Early On: Nancy Carson, the talent agent who helped Britney land an Off-Broadway role in New York City as a child, recalls seeing Jamie around Britney much less than Lynne in the early 1990s.
“Jamie visited from time to time and was anxious to see this time be worthwhile so that he could justify the money that it was costing to do this,” Carson says.
Former Jive executive Kaiman, meanwhile, tells viewers that Lynne “supported” Britney’s music career while Jamie was seemingly absent.
“Her mother would do whatever it took, personally and for the family’s sake, for Britney to be a star,” Kaiman recounts. “I never talked to her father. The only thing Jamie ever said to me was, ‘My daughter is going to be so rich she’s going to buy me a boat.’ That’s all I’m going to say about Jamie.”
Britney Was Never a ‘Puppet’: Kevin Tancharoen, who worked as one of Britney’s backup dancers in the prime of her career, contends in the film that she was “definitely in control of a lot of decisions” while on tour.
“That idea that Britney is a puppet who just gets moved around and gets told what to do is incredibly inaccurate,” he says. “When I was involved in all of those years, we would present a lot of ideas. She would have to like them, and she would have to approve them. She was very creative. She was the one who knew what she wanted to do, and she would make that happen or her people would make that happen for her. That’s how I got hired is because she just told somebody, ‘No, I want him to do it.’ And it happened within an hour. She was the boss.”
Britney Did Not Get to Choose Her Own Lawyer: Adam Streisand, a trial lawyer who specializes in conservatorships and estates, tells viewers that he met with Britney after her 2008 hospitalization when she was looking for an attorney.
“The first question I had was, ‘Does Britney have the capacity to be able to hire me? Does she have the ability to take my advice?’” he remembers asking during their meeting. “The first thing is Britney was able to make the judgment. [She said,] ‘Hey, I get what’s going on. I get that I’m not going to be able to resist this conservatorship or avoid this conservatorship.’ So, that’s a pretty sound judgment. The second thing was, she said, ‘I don’t want my father to be the conservator.’ That was her one request. She wanted a professional or somebody independent. … Britney did not want her father to be the conservator of her person, the person who makes decisions about her medical care, treatment, so on and so forth. She also didn’t want him controlling her finances.”
However, the judge on the case ultimately disagreed with Streisand’s assertion that the entertainer was capable of retaining her own lawyer, so he was not brought onto the case.
“I felt that was not the right decision by the judge,” Streisand says, acknowledging that the judge had seen Britney’s medical report while he had not. “I felt that based on my interactions with Britney that she was capable.”
Britney Will Speak Out One Day: At the end of the documentary, Culotta says she is confident that fans will get to hear from Britney again. “I know at some point she will tell her story. I know she will,” she says. “And I am so grateful for when that point comes, that she’s able to sit down and … everything will fall into place.”
Source: US Magazine