“Britney Spears is a pure product of entertainment society, but she was trapped by this mechanism”

“Britney without filter”, a documentary series to watch on Arte.tv, looks back on the conflicting destiny of the pop singer, between media whirlwind and voracious industry. Its director, Jeanne Burel, explains to us.

«JI can’t sleep, I’m so angry, I want my life back. » Between the walls of a Los Angeles court, the voice of Britney Spears resonates. Outside, hundreds of fans will soon celebrate the lifting of guardianship deemed abusive which has lasted for thirteen years. In 2021, the event is relayed by television news around the world, shared on social networks and gives rise to numerous more or less happy documentaries.

Four years have passed since this media episode. And it is with a welcome hindsight that Jeanne Burel in turn dwells on this trial and the trajectory of the princess of pop in a fascinating series available on Arte.tv. “ In 2021, the world discovered the extent of this abusive situationremembers the documentary maker. Two years later, Britney Spears published her memoirs. When I read them, I realized that she was much more lucid about her story than we might have thought. I wanted to report this. »

In The Woman in me (ed. JC Lattès), the singer describes: “I smiled politely at the presenters who were staring at my breasts, while parents accused me of corrupting their children and my father and mother treated me like the devil. » With Britney without filter, Jeanne Burel offers a rereading of her career in the light of this edifying testimony. His debut on the small screen with the Mickey Mouse Clubhis rise in the era of music videos, his confrontations with the omnipresent paparazzi… “ His career embraces the advent of new media, underlines Jeanne Burel. Britney Spears is both a pure product of the entertainment society of the 1990s and 2000s: she grew up in front of the camera, her every move is scrutinized, she embodies a celebrity “close to us”. And at the same time, she was trapped by this mechanism that she did not anticipate. » Countless archive images, skillfully edited, illustrate this media maelstrom… and its effect on the star.

“As the public, we also have a responsibility for how things turned out for Britney, also insists the director. We are a generation that has consumed these images, without always having adopted the necessary critical distance. » She herself, a teenager in the 2000s, does not fail to question the way she looked at the artist at the time, as well as that of her speakers. “In 2007, I too thought Britney had gone crazy », says author Sandrine Galand. Like her, journalists, bloggers and sociologists combine in this series an intellectual and emotional approach, with a singular tone that shakes up, enlightens, and ultimately allows for a collective mea culpa.