108 Time March 15/March 22, 2021
T
he year is 2021, and The mosT-Talked-abouT
pop star in the world is Britney Spears. Yes, that’s the
same Britney Spears who hasn’t released a new studio
album since 2016 and who, two years ago, announced an
“indefinite work hiatus.” But one way of explaining the resurgence
of interest in all things Britney is that she’s now in the news
because of how long she’s been out of the news.
Specifically, Spears is suddenly ubiquitous—in headlines, on
social media and in SNL sketches—thanks to “Framing Britney
Spears,” an episode of FX docuseries The New York Times Presents
that is now streaming on Hulu. Directed by Samantha Stark, it offers
a thorough chronology of Spears’ career, with a focus on the con-
servatorship she was placed under in 2008, which gave her father
Jamie Spears control over her finances and career. As the fans who
have spent years agitating on her behalf put it: #FreeBritney.
That rallying cry has spread since the doc’s Feb. 5 premiere,
and the movement to liberate the 39-year-old performer and
mom is rapidly gaining momentum. Media outlets and come-
dians have expressed regret over their treatment of her. Her ex
Justin Timberlake—whom Stark singles out for manipulating their
breakup narrative—apologized. On Feb. 11, a judge confirmed that
Jamie Spears would have to share conservatorship with a third
party, in a ruling that should moderate his power over his daughter.
It’s been a heartening, if long overdue, corrective to decades
of cruelty toward a woman who openly struggled with objectifi-
cation, paparazzi surveillance, harsh media scrutiny and mental
health. Spears isn’t the only specter of turn-of-the- millennium
femininity to inspire a recent public reconsideration. Days after
“Framing” debuted, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel actor
Charisma Carpenter spoke out about what she called abuses of
power by the shows’ creator, Joss Whedon, touching off a new
wave of mourning among fans for whom Buffy has been a symbol
of empowered femininity.
This re-evaluation isn’t likely to end anytime soon. In January,
HBO Max announced it was bringing back TV’s most influential
depiction of womanhood in the late ’90s and early ’00s: Sex and
the City. While still a cultural touchstone, the show has grown
more controversial since its 2004 finale, as a powerful movement
for inclusion in Hollywood casts its very white New York in an in-
creasingly unflattering light and an economy in seemingly perma-
nent post-2008 flux encourages a dimmer view of the characters’
conspicuous consumption.
Whether you attribute them to a 20-year nostalgia cycle, a new
wave of feminism or both, these blasts from the recent past add up
to a larger reckoning with how pop culture treated women a gener-
ation ago. It was an era of unprecedented frankness around female
sexuality, influenced by the adversarial but often over lapping zeit-
geists of third-wave feminism—which emphasized individualism
and sex positivity—and postfeminism, or the presumption that
equality had for all practical purposes been achieved.
The good news was that old stigmas around femininity, sex work
and the enjoyment of pop culture faded.
The bad news? Many women felt pressure
to excel at everything—to be actualized in
their careers and relationships, but also
kitchen- savvy sex goddesses with flaw-
less makeup. Meanwhile, amid a boom-
ing economy, the ecstasy of female pur-
chasing power could drown out scrutiny
of what was being sold, from breast im-
plants to snarky tabloids. And then there
was the tendency of the white, middle-
class feminist establishment to ignore
the millions of women who weren’t in a
position to buy their way to fulfillment.
In 2021, the gender politics of those so-
called post feminist years can look pre-
historic. This current reassessment is
healthy—a way of deepening our under-
standing of the past and sharpening our
priorities in the present.Postfeminism and, to a lesser extent,
the third wave were gifts to the enter-
tainment industry. For the first time
in decades, Hollywood could—with-
out looking retrograde—fill its frames
with hot girls in tight clothes who lived
to shop, primp and have sex. This newTimeOff Opener
ESSAY
Puncturing the
post feminist fantasy
By Judy Berman
In 2021,
the gender
politics
of those
so-called
postfeminist
years
can look
prehistoric