Earlier this month, The New York Times debuted their documentary Framing Britney Spears, illuminating the pop star’s life as she is stuck under a 13 year court-mandated conservatorship. The singer, now 39 years old, is a native of Kentwood, Louisiana and is known for being the best selling teenage performer of all time. What is lesser known about her is her endless struggle living with mental health issues, her fight for custody of her children with ex-Kevin Federline, and what really goes on with her father, Jamie Spears, controlling her estate and current relationships.

The documentary begins with a look into Britney’s small town life in Kentwood as a young girl, when her parents encouraged her to join local pageants and managed to get her on the radar of Star Search and the Disney Channel. It quickly goes from 0-to-60, showing cringe-worthy moments that are certainly against the moral standards of 2021: Britney Spears’s cosmetically enhanced teen body splayed out on a bed on the cover of Rolling Stone and  MTV Vjays trying to trip up her intelligence on national television. The joke was always on Britney, = even when she shaved her head and was screaming that she only wanted to see her young children. One calls to mind Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle as the film shows Britney literally unravelling at the public’s mob mentality.

The film goes on to show the creation of the #FreeBritney movement. What started as fangirling from comedians Tess Barker and Barbara Gray, who would podcast about Britney’s curiously curated Instagram feed, became a full onslaught internet sleuth investigation that gained momentum in April of 2019. With a legion of fans decked out in full Britney regalia, the comedians-turned-community organizers posted up outside of the West Hollywood City Hall to ask that the court help in freeing the singer from her seemingly oppressive conservatorship.

Kentwood has heeded the call to join the Britney army, replacing their local welcome sign with a pink and  plastiscene sign that simply says: #FreeBritney.

The documentary is now streaming on FX and Hulu.