Poor Justin Timberlake … will not be three phrases I might have imagined typing 25, or 15 and even 5 years in the past.
Mr. Timberlake, the “Mickey Mouse Membership” veteran turned boy band pinup; half — together with Britney Spears — of an iconic millennial energy couple; the platinum-selling Grammy-award-winning solo artist and a go-to “Saturday Evening Stay” visitor host; and now, as the entire huge world has discovered, the dude arrested within the Hamptons early Tuesday morning and charged with driving whereas intoxicated.
Sprinkling salt on the wound, Web page Six reported that the arresting officer didn’t know who the perp was. After Mr. Timberlake reportedly muttered that the arrest was “going to wreck the tour,” the officer requested, “What tour?” Per Individuals journal, “the web can’t cease laughing.” Among the many cascade of jokes: that his arrest is likely to be the one occasion that might flip all of X pro-cop for a day, or that Mr. Timberlake ought to have been extra involved with taking a cab again than bringing horny again. Streams of Britney Spears’ track “Felony” spiked. Savage memes hold replicating.
The distress of celebrities at all times events a hearth hose of schadenfreude, however this appears subsequent degree. The place, I discovered myself questioning as I scrolled and LOL’ed, are the followers rallying to his protection? Why is everybody having fun with this fairly so very, very a lot?
The reply is that this isn’t taking place to any outdated celeb. It’s taking place to the person who for the longest time appeared, to many, just like the embodiment of unearned success — in a phrase, privilege. He’s a gifted performer, a gifted singer, an enthralling actor, positive. However his greatest expertise could also be for getting away clear.
Over time Mr. Timberlake has not been resistant to controversy, simply to its penalties. Time after time, he escaped unscathed, trying and, it appeared, feeling simply nice, whereas these round him had been left to choose up the items.
When Mr. Timberlake and Ms. Spears broke up in 2002, his story — hinted at in interviews, acted out in music movies and implied in mash-ups of “What Goes Round … Comes Round,” “Rehab” and “Loopy” — was that she’d cheated and damaged his coronary heart. The world was completely happy to take his phrase for it. “You probably did one thing that prompted him a lot ache,” Diane Sawyer mentioned to Ms. Spears in an interview in 2003. “A lot struggling. What did you do?”
Then, in 2004, Mr. Timberlake joined Janet Jackson throughout her Tremendous Bowl halftime present. You understand what occurred subsequent: At one level the choreography referred to as for him to tug off a panel of her bustier, however due to what would later, and nonetheless remarkably, be euphemized as a wardrobe malfunction, nearly her complete breast was uncovered. For some purpose, Ms. Jackson was publicly excoriated. Every week later Mr. Timberlake gained a Grammy for finest male pop vocal efficiency, at a present from which Ms. Jackson had been disinvited.
Alongside the way in which, some observers began calling Mr. Timberlake out for what they noticed as appropriating from Black tradition (R&B, gospel and hip-hop), however not standing up for Black folks. It didn’t cease single after single from topping the charts.
In time, the Black Lives Matter motion helped make extra folks keen to consider the position that race performs in figuring out who succeeds and who fails, whose profession stalls and whose soars, who walks away from a visitors cease. And the #MeToo motion left folks extra skeptical of male misbehavior and extra keen to imagine ladies. When Ms. Spears’ memoir was launched final yr, she informed her aspect of the story: that Mr. Timberlake was the one who’d cheated, after which dumped her by way of textual content message. She additionally revealed that she’d change into pregnant, and that he had insisted on an abortion, throughout which he performed the guitar whereas she writhed in agony on the toilet ground.
This time round, many readers appeared keen to imagine her. Additionally they appeared delighted by the prospect to mock him — even Michelle Williams, who narrated the audiobook, had means an excessive amount of enjoyable mimicking him as he supposedly mentioned, “Oh, yeah! Fo’ shiz fo’ shiz! Ginuwine! What’s up, homie?”
In 2021, after the discharge of a documentary about Ms. Spears, Mr. Timberlake took to social media to make amends.
“I particularly need to apologize to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson each individually as a result of I look after and respect these ladies and I do know I failed,” he mentioned. “I additionally really feel compelled to reply, partially, as a result of everybody concerned deserves higher and most significantly, as a result of it is a bigger dialog that I wholeheartedly need to be part of and develop from.”
That Justin Timberlake — the one who has emerged over the previous couple of years — appeared much less like a pop Prince Charming, extra a serial exploiter of ladies and of Black music and tradition, a person who has loved unearned privilege and undeserved successes, who has been served that long-awaited slice of humble pie. Which is why loads of folks had been so desirous to view his arrest this week as a form of deferred-karma comeuppance.
I used to be, I confess, a type of folks. Some a part of me needs to imagine that if the last word Teflon-coated wealthy white dude is not so in a position to allure his means out of hassle, a bigger cultural sea change is likely to be underway.
Nevertheless it’s the identical a part of me that needed to imagine that Donald Trump can be held to account for the “Entry Hollywood” tape. Besides he wasn’t.
It’s the identical half that thought Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations would put a cease to Brett Kavanaugh’s probability to take a seat on the Supreme Court docket. Besides they didn’t.
The identical half that hoped that the allegations about which Matt Lauer mentioned he felt “embarrassed and ashamed” meant he’d by no means a lot as breathe the phrase comeback. Besides he has. Repeatedly.
Canceled white guys hardly ever keep canceled. It looks as if the very best we are able to hope for is an opportunity to briefly maintain them liable for their actions. In the meantime, the cultural tides that prompted folks to rethink Mr. Timberlake’s actions are shifting again — in the event that they ever actually shifted in any respect.
The companies that adopted D.E.I. initiatives with such fanfare a couple of brief years in the past are retrenching, consolidating, or casting off their variety departments altogether. Republican lawmakers are eagerly banning D.E.I. in larger schooling. In publishing, lots of the Black editors employed with such fanfare in the previous couple of years have misplaced their jobs, whereas Black authors proceed to account for lower than 10 p.c of novels revealed by main conglomerates every year. In the meantime, Roe v. Wade is 2 years within the rearview mirror and Donald Trump, whose Supreme Court docket picks ensured its demise, is main within the polls.
Do not forget that social media apology that Mr. Timberlake supplied a couple of years in the past? This previous January, at a New York Metropolis live performance, he introduced that he apologized to “completely” — and right here he interjected an expletive — “no person.”
The memes are hilarious, the tweets are even funnier, however the likeliest case is that Justin Timberlake can be simply nice. And even when he’s not, there can be different males like him lining as much as take his place. The techniques that allow him flourish are even much less susceptible than the boys who’ve lengthy reaped their advantages.
