“Misogyny? I haven’t heard that name in years”
Maddy Black / April 2 / Cultural Misogyny
One of the more overt messages of the famed Hulu documentary ‘Framing Britney Spears’ is that the misogynistic traditions of the entertainment industry enabled and fostered the deterioration of Britney’s mental health. This fall from grace landed her in the conservatorship, culminating in a near total silencing of her voice - the same voice which sold over 100 million records worldwide.
The doc makes sure to highlight Britney as far from an industry puppet, laying the foreground for its depiction of the conservatorship as an egregious constriction of her autonomy. “I am not a diva, I just know what I want” Britney coolly asserts in rehearsal. Her personality and record sales alike attest to the same: Britney Spears was a powerful woman. Inversely, the doc points to an insidious and multifactorial apparatus that effected her takedown.
Sky’s documentary detailed the cruelty Spears was subjected to at the hands of the media.
The Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Madonna Whore complex as a lens through which to view female entertainers, the notoriously messy and invasive paparazzi culture at its apotheosis - all of these cultural factors created a perfect storm that swept Spears off her feet and left her unable to find a stronghold since. Why was the condemnation of Spears so uncontested? And who spearheaded and articulated the misogynist sentiments underlying it?
Let’s name and shame. It’s often easy to perceive structural and societal ills like misogyny as intangible. But there are certain repeated offenders who not only participated in this culture, but pushed its boundaries, dipped their toes in the proverbial hot water, and pushed vulnerable women in.
“And as upset as it makes you, you wouldn't trade your life now it seems”
Matt Lauer stares blankly at Britney, who, sobbing and attempting to compose herself, offers little in response. “That seems a little strange for some people to understand”. Lauer's expression spreads into a grin. As the co-anchor of NBC’s ‘Today’ show in 2006, Lauer was at the top of his game - his ‘game’ was being a mouthpiece for the same invasive questions, riddled with implications, that headlined on the tabloid media press. That being said, Lauer’s influence is not exclusive to celebrity aughts culture. It’s longstanding, pervasive, and disturbing. Thankfully, he is no longer in such a position - he’s too busy dealing with his own allegations of sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, and rape. He was fired in 2017, but not before his role at NBC ensured the continual privileging of predatory men over vulnerable women in media narratives. This ranged from Lauer’s cruel probing of Britney in his own interview, to victim-blaming Bill Cosby’s first accuser Tamara Green, to the killing of the investigative report on Harvey Weinstein at NBC.
Pushing Britney to tears on live television is just the tip of the iceberg then. It goes to show the formidable consequences of enabling the microaggressions and cutting comments that Lauer had been making for 20 years before his dismissal. Ronan Farrow, the investigative reporter who first exposed Weinstein in a story which eventually broke in The New Yorker, alleges that Weinstein weaponised his own knowledge of Matt Lauer’s sexual misconduct as a means to protect himself from being exposed. Lauer’s sexual misconduct simmered just beneath the surface of an open secret. Weinstein demonstrated knowledge that the star of the ‘Today’ show had secrets of a similar ilk to his to ensure the Weinstein story was killed at NBC - a kind of sexual assaulters’ quid-pro-quo. The network protected them both: meanwhile, Rose McGowan, Weinstein’s most prominent accuser, was being stalked by PI’s and drones and fearing for her life. Farrow recalls that when his reporting on Weinstein was mysteriously killed at NBC, NBC Network President Noah Oppenheim received a bottle of Grey Goose from Weinstein himself, as a thank you.
Seven years on from the Matt Lauer interview, Lindsay Lohan stutters whilst David Letterman, host of the then-known ‘Late Night Show with Letterman’ insistently probes Lohan about her experience in rehab and with addiction. To Lohan’s knowledge, the interview was to promote her recent work on ‘Scary Movie 5’. Lohan takes Letterman’s jokes with poise, initially picking up the gauntlet and making some self-deprecating jokes herself. But as she begins to tear up whilst Letterman guffaws in the background, Lohan makes sure the audience knows that a boundary has been crossed. ‘It’s so funny…’ she said half enthusiastically, ‘Except for it’s not funny because it’s hurtful towards me’.
Lohan & Letterman in 2013
Vapid but inflammatory questions of the same nature characterised Paris Hilton’s interview in 2007. Like Lohan, she wasn’t informed about the trajectory Letterman clearly planned for the interview to take. Despite the pre-interview’s suggestion that they would be promoting Hilton’s new perfume, Letterman takes a hard pivot to Hilton’s time in jail, in a series of questions that seem to possess no value other than their intimidating effect upon Hilton’s composure. On food in jail, Letterman asks ‘Would you start with a breakfast?’ As these questions escalate, like Lohan and Spears, Hilton begins to tear up and repeatedly implores Letterman to change the subject, to no avail.
Though perhaps not as extreme as Matt Lauer’s interview with Britney (which is worth watching in full to give an idea of how persistently he emotionally wore her down throughout), Letterman’s late night interrogations serve as another worthy example of how small symptoms hint at a much larger and deeper problem. In a piece for Vanity Fair released in 2009, Nell Scovell, an ex writer for the Letterman show, outlined a workplace at the Letterman Show characterised by sexual harassment and sexual favouritism. Hopeless in the face of a hostile work environment in which sexual relations between coworkers was not only normalised but encouraged as a means for female employees to advance their career, Scovell walked away from her ‘dream job’.
Though Letterman and Lauer no longer occupy the spotlight, that only came to be in the last few years. Letterman retired from Late Night 6 years after Scovell alleged sexual harassment in the workplace, and now continues his work on a less high profile show on Netflix; Lauer was fired from NBC when his accusers came forward in 2017.
Retrospectively condemning the misogynistic narratives imposed on women and the leniency afforded to men in the early 2000’s implies that now, we operate from a different moral standpoint. Yet the figureheads and cultural structures which perpetuated those patriarchal standards are, for the most part, still in place. Noah Oppenheim still sits at the helm of NBC news - in fact, his contract was renewed last year. Far from experiencing retribution or at the very least some kind of pause on their career, many alleged perpetrators of sexual violence have been promoted. Tara Reid, who accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, is still on the receiving end of a slew of death threats, dealt the same unfortunate hand as Kavanagh accuser Christine Bailey Ford, and Britney-era Monica Lewinsky. The Guardian recently announced that 97% of women have been sexually harassed, shortly after the famous Oprah Winfrey Meghan Markle interview in which Meghan confessed to being brought to the point of suicidal ideation at the hands of the British tabloid press. Still, Piers Morgan smugly declares, “I wouldn’t believe her if she read me a weather report”.
Introspection in response to ‘Framing Britney Spears’, or indeed any of the interviews which have resurfaced over the past few months in what seems to be a cultural reckoning surrounding the treatment of stars in the paparazzi glory days, is only productive if we apply its product to the present day. Even at their most slight, symptoms of sexism in the entertainment industry must be addressed, not as an isolated incident but a surfacing of cultural attitudes which reverberate far deeper, even clouding the identity of the most infamous rapist of the 21st century in their murky waters.