The highly anticipated #FreeBritney HBO exposé, Framing Britney Spears, finally aired a few days ago and, among the many revelations the gut-wrenching documentary made, is that one of the catalysts to Britney’s notorious 2007 meltdown was Justin Timberlake’s repugnant and utterly misogynistic behavior towards her.
The two dated for a couple of years back in the early 00’s and were quickly dubbed as America’s Sweethearts, but everything turned to black when they broke up. Justin humiliated the young, innocent Britney, who tried to retain her virginal image at the behest of her label, by bragging about taking her virginity on national radio. But the killing blow was his false depiction of her as a man-eating succubus in the video to his popular hit, Cry Me A River.
These aren’t the only instances Justin has been cruel to women. There’s a good reason why Super Bowl Sunday is now dubbed “Janet Appreciation Day”. Ever since that horrible day, Justin’s career soared to stratospheric levels while Janet’s died then and there. However, another story that hasn’t caught anywhere near the same traction as that fateful day is him sexually assaulting Australian pop icon, Kylie Minogue at the 2003 Brit Awards. In the performance, he cops a feel of Minogue’s behind despite her sternly telling him not to before the show started.
If Justin were black, he would have been cancelled by now. But he’s not; he’s everything Middle America craves in a celebrity: wholesomeness, whiteness with a tasteful hint of freakiness. Despite the many so-called strides American society has made, some stereotypes are still very much alive such as the disturbingly racist stereotype that black men are aggressive, sexual predators towards the pure white woman. This has been well documented in Hollywood dating back to its first full-fledged blockbuster, Birth of a Nation, that more or less blames the establishment of the KKK on the racist archetype of the predatory black man.
Justin apologized yesterday after an avalanche of vitriol fell on him spurred on by the revelations of the HBO documentary. It was, as expected, a perfectly calibrated apology written by a team of astute Hollywood PR vermin. Fortunately, it largely fell on deaf ears. One YouTube comment reads, “FAKE” and another, “He’s only sorry cause he got caught” while the most commonly used comment happens to also be my favorite, “Cry me a river, Justin.”
There has to be a reckoning, repercussions and ultimately, a distancing. But there won’t be. Justin is the ultimate white fuckboy, and like all the good ones (hey, Armie EDIT: Michael Fassbender), he’ll eventually get away with it all.
