Why The Boys Uses A Britney Spears Song For Starlight’s Backstory

Warning: Contains SPOILERS for The Boys season 3, episode 3.

The inclusion of a Britney Spears song in The Boys season 3 makes an already uncomfortable scene even more hard-hitting. Across the Amazon series' first two seasons, The Boys revealed flickers of Starlight's upsetting backstory. After receiving a big payout to let Vought inject her daughter with blue goop, Donna January immediately sought to capitalize on Annie's newfound superpowers, pushing her into all manner of pageants and youth groups on a relentless path toward Seven Tower. Needless to say, Starlight's relationship with her mother is now strained, as she comes to terms with being exploited for financial gain by the person who should love her most.

We've heard about Starlight's past before, but The Boys season 3, episode 3 ("Barbary Coast") actually shows it. Played by Maya Misaljevic, the episode's opening flashback reveals young Starlight competing in Vought's "Little Miss Hero" pageant. She complains about costume discomfort, but Donna (once again portrayed by Ann Cusack) forces her daughter forward, and young Starlight steps on stage to perform a superpower-infused song and dance routine. It's icky. It's supposed to be. And to make audiences shuffle in their seats even more, the song Starlight performs in The Boys season 3 is "...Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears.

Upon hearing those famous opening "da dun dun" chords, it's impossible not to mentally revisit Britney's iconic "...Baby One More Time" video, where the popstar paraded around a high school singing the track that would make her famous. The then-16-year-old Britney being presented in an overtly sexualized light caused controversy at the time and continues to draw criticism today, but media mistreatment of Britney Spears extends far beyond a single video. An infamous 1999 bedroom photoshoot objectified the young star, and interview questions posed during those early days were often invasive and wildly inappropriate. So, when Starlight begins her routine to win "Little Miss Hero" in The Boys season 3, and pulls out dance moves designed to spark discomfort in the viewer, the use of Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time" as a backing song serves as a vomit-inducing reminder that this does actually happen. You've even got ex-boyfriend Supersonic as the successful boy band member/child star who went solo, analogous to Justin Timberlake. Vought, Starlight and "Little Miss Hero" might be fabrications of The Boys' fictional world, but the treatment Annie endured is sadly mirrored by the experience of young girls in real life.

Maya Misaljevic as Starlight in The Boys

Intentionally or otherwise, The Boys setting Starlight's flashback to a Britney Spears tune inevitably alludes toward the singer's highly controversial conservatorship. Beginning in 2008, Spears' financial independence and ability to make decisions were legally removed and placed under the conservatorship of her father. Despite having no say in her career or financial arrangements, Spears continued to perform during this time, most notably at a Las Vegas residency. Drawing from the cultural phenomenon of the #FreeBritney campaign and the hugely popular Framing Britney Spears documentary, it's surely no coincidence that The Boys season 3 uses Britney's music for Starlight - a character who was previously forced to perform by her mother, and is now forced to perform by Vought and Homelander. The Boys is constantly commentating and dissecting the zeitgeist, and not only does #FreeBritney fit squarely into that ballpark, it's an eerily accurate comparison to Starlight's story.

The Boys has a (very much deserved) reputation for bloodshed, gore and general depravity, but its most brutal scenes are often free of violence and fish guts entirely. The Boys season 2's most hard-hitting moment was the radicalization scene of "Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker." The darkest moment of The Boys season 3 thus far is Annie's childhood dance routine, so when the unmistakable "...Baby One More Time" plays again in the episode's final scene with Homelander, Starlight is immediately taken back to that prison-like existence of smiling through physical and emotional pain.