Jennifer Lopez’s Halftime is the latest film released by a female pop star that blurs the lines between documentary and fiction, says journalist Hannah Strong
Jennifer Lopez’s Halftime is the latest film released by a female pop star that blurs the lines between documentary and fictionJennifer Lopez on stage at the 2020 Super Bowl in Miami, Florida.K
aty Perry, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Charlie XCX, Olivia Rodrigo: over the past decade, there has been a boom in documentaries about female pop stars. These glossy, behind-the-scenes films promise to share an unfiltered and authentic look at “the real them”, often centred around a tour or the recording of a new album.
feels like a more intriguing prospect than some of the recent concert tie-ins to feature J-Lo’s juniors. The film, directed by Amanda Micheli, focuses primarily on the run-up to Lopez’s performance at the 2020 Super Bowl and covers Lopez narrowly missing out on an Oscar nomination for her lauded performance in Lorene Scafaria’s 2019 film. Lopez’s reasons for releasing a documentary are understandable: her three-decade career has been mired by professional and personal criticism.
Women in music frequently face difficulty in being taken seriously as artists. Such documentaries give stars the opportunity to control their image and choose how much of themselves to share with audiences. Of course this trend isn’t restricted to women. Justin Bieber and One Direction’s mid-10s concert documentaries promised viewers a look at their idols as they had never seen them before. Fans piled into cinemas.
But for female musicians, particularly those working in the often belittled world of pop music, documentaries can be a powerful tool for regaining narrative control. When Katy Perry released Part of Me, the film that accompanied her mammoth, 124-date world tour, she was battling health problems and in the middle of a painful divorce from Russell Brand.
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