Author discusses the ‘toxic’ coverage of female celebrities in the 2000s

Host Scott Detrow speaks with Sarah Ditum about her new book, Toxic: Women, Fame and the Tabloid 2000s.

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

Twenty years ago this month, a wardrobe malfunction in the Super Bowl halftime show caused a global meltdown. If you were alive in 2004, you probably know this moment. Justin Timberlake reached across Janet Jackson’s chest, pulled off one of the cups of her top and exposed her breasts to millions of viewers. The incident and the furor that followed became known as nipplegate.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE AND JANET JACKSON: (Singing) Bet I’ll have you naked by the end of this song.

DETROW: Jackson took almost all of the blame for what happened that night and the moral outrage that followed. Nipplegate is one of several moments, and Jackson is one of several famous women that author Sarah Ditum takes a critical look at in her new book called Toxic: Women, Fame, And The Tabloid 2000s. It’s a reassessment of a time when popular culture policed, ridiculed and even destroyed a variety of women in the public eye, women like Janet Jackson and women like Britney Spears, the teenage pop princess who, when she first became a superstar, was in a serious relationship with the same guy who dodged the blame for nipplegate – Justin Timberlake.

SARAH DITUM: An extraordinary double standard in that case especially. I mean, you have, for example, Britney being grilled by Diane Sawyer about how many times she’s had sex and who with and being reduced to tears and forced to apologize to America for having a perfectly ordinary sex life as a young woman, versus Justin Timberlake being, you know, encouraged to basically frat boy it up on talk radio and being celebrated for, I think, in the words of Details magazine cover line, getting into Britney’s pants. This is really crass, unpleasant stuff.

DETROW: Yeah. Broadening it out, you focus on celebrity pop culture of the aughts with a little bit of…