One thing is clear, when you read the long, sad (but buzz-worthy) feature in The New Yorker entitled “Britney Spears’s Conservatorship Nightmare.”
Britney is a celebrity.
When she goes to court, she is a celebrity. When she escapes to a pub, she is a celebrity. When she fights to see her children, she is a celebrity. When she has a nervous breakdown (especially in public), she is a celebrity.
If and when she ever returns to church (there are rumors), she will do so as a celebrity. Ditto for any return to celebrity friendly Kabbalah classes.
But you get what you expect in this feature, written by Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino. There’s a huge cast of characters, some who speak on the record and some who do not. There are waves of details from court documents and testimony. There’s an endless survey of public scenes and paparazzi chases.
But the second line of the double-decker headline points to the heart of the story: “How the pop star’s father and a team of lawyers seized control of her life — and have held on to it for thirteen years.”
This is a story about a fight between a Baptist father (simply “Jamie” in most of the story) and his wild daughter — who has lived her entire teen and adult life in the glare of a media spotlight that burned her, even as it poured wealth on everyone around her, including members of her immediate family.
What about faith issues? There are fleeting glimpses of religion “ghosts” throughout this story. However, there is evidence that The New Yorker team realizes that, behind all of the talk about Britney’s mental health, the father and daughter are fighting about the moral choices she has made in her private life. Meanwhile, the daughter keeps trying to break free from this noose, in part through sex, love, marriage and children.
Consider the implications of this passage, referring to the legal drama that pulled the #FreeBritney social-media world back into the headlines:
