As fans continue to speculate about Britney Spears being, for all intents and purposes, held captive in her Los Angeles home (wandering its halls like a less glamorous Norma Desmond) as a result of her long-standing conservatorship, her recent phenomenon of answering fans’ questions on IG took a turn for the très macabre when she proceeded to deliver responses that were rife with symbolism to seemingly “inane” queries. But there was nothing inane about their hand-picked nature, and the way in which Spears chose to riposte.
In her now signature look of a messy up ‘do, crop top showcasing vague love handles (despite most of her videos being about working out)–with a bathing suit worn underneath for trashy 00s measure–and heavy eye makeup, Spears began, “So the first question you guys have been asking me is what’s my favorite Disney movie. My favorite Disney movie is probably Frozen just because I really like the fact that the two sisters–um, their relationship–and then one goes off and lives in a castle just because she can’t deal anymore.” Apart from her frothy assessment of the sororal relationship between Elsa and Anna, the analogy here is pretty obvious, with Britney identifying with Elsa and her inability to “deal.” For Britney is living the same hermit life in her attempt to be left alone. At the same time, she is burdened by the imprisonment she feels in being essentially forced to hide from the world save for via these increasingly nonsensical videos and photos (among the latest being an illustration with a caption/discussion of the third eye, which is never a good sign in terms of gauging just how pazzo someone is).
It is with the next reply that Spears tries to be slightly more cryptic about her feelings of captivity, though only ends up being all the more straightforward in how she feels regarding a life of confinement spent under stalking surveillance by those who would prefer to stymy any fun she might have. So it is that she tells fans, “My favorite movie movie is probably Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Barring the fact that, at this moment in time more than ever, it’s probably among the least politically correct films for a white person to name as their favorite (after all, it is one of the most glaring cinematic examples of how white privilege can exempt a person–particularly a man–from any real consequences), Britney likely couldn’t help admiring something in Ferris’ refusal to be oppressed by the adults around him, instead making his own freedom by any means necessary–subterfuge and grand theft auto included (this latter choice being something Britney has likely thought about over and over again in her fantasies of true escape).
The final three questions and answers are slightly more rooted in nebulousness, with the last one being especially designed to be parsed by fans aware that among one of the chief concerns about “freeing Britney” would be her terrible driving skills (best immortalized in 2006 when she was pictured with her then infant son, Sean Preston, in her lap while at the wheel). But before that, she acknowledges the query, “What time do I go to sleep? I go to sleep between 11:30 and 12.” This very deliberate citing of normalcy and regularity seems to be an attempt on Britney’s part to prove that she is “adult” in her behavior and routine. Certainly adult enough to make her own financial and personal decisions. After all, she’s not some wild child of the mid-00s anymore, getting her bare snatch photographed by paparazzi in the small hours of the morning. No, she is Responsible Britney. Responsible enough to get a decent night’s sleep so that she might, oh, say, spend time with her own kids the following day. But no, Daddy Spears (whose role has been “temporarily” taken over by “care manager” Jodi Montgomery), until his dying breath, seems to think that no “bedtime” would ever indicate Britney’s competence as a mother.
The next question is also a simple one: “What’s my favorite flower? It’s a rose.” Here, too, Britney’s gift for frank metaphor has never been more on point–not to mention Disney-veering once more. Because any millennial girl can’t help but think of the rose the Beast was at the mercy of as it continued to wilt in its glass encasement in 1991’s Beauty and the Beast (‘cause in the end, fuck that Emma Watson bullshit). This visual of the petals slowly falling off the bud makes one think of how Britney is now. Not just because we’ve watched a “teen dream Lolita” disintegrate into a fast food guzzling shut-in who seems to still be a child inside that grown woman’s body (a.k.a. trapped in a state of arrested development), but because, despite her assurances that she’s happy, well, happy people don’t stare into the void and document it–they just don’t (of late, we can say the same of Kanye West as well, who seems ever closer to securing his owner conservatorship).
As for the last inquiry, “How old was I when I got my first car? I was probably seventeen years old. Have I ever gotten a speeding ticket? I’ve had one speeding ticket my whole life.” This seems like a direct rebuff of certain family members’ insistence that Britney cannot perform basic day-to-day functions like driving a car so that she might be able to engage in even the most innocuous of errands. Her brother, Bryan Spears, seemed unabashed in remarking on a podcast called As Not Seen On TV, that the conservatorship has been “a great thing for our family.” Well, yeah, of course it has, but most would have the good taste not to overtly point that out–how Britney has long been a cash cow for everyone on the family payroll, helmed for so long by her father. Addressing that Britney has “always wanted to get out” of the conservatorship, it didn’t stop the family from ensuring its binding shackles, even if “it’s very frustrating to have. Whether someone’s coming in peace to help or coming in with an attitude, having someone constantly tell you to do something has got to be frustrating.”
Elsewhere it was stated that taking away Britney’s team of handlers would do more harm than good, as “she’s been surrounded by a team of people since she was 15, so at what level does everyone just walk away or get reduced?” Among the “everyday tasks” she’s never really had to perform for herself is driving (once upon a time, the apex of symbolizing freedom in America). And yet, if you don’t let go of the reins on someone, how are they ever going to fully grow up? Britney has been locked in a sinister Neverland (no Michael Jackson allusion intended) for far too long. And the only way to remedy that damage is, indeed, by heeding her no longer even coded messages about wanting liberation.
