The case for Justin Timberlake, the celebrity we deserve

When I started seeing the man who is now my husband, I would go to sleep every night with the lights on and the movie, Primary Colors, blaring on DVD. My rationale for this was simple enough – if I could hear John Travolta doing his best Bill Clinton impersonation, then I couldn’t hear my thoughts. And if I left the lights on all night, then I would see any rapists or murderers that were approaching and be able to fight them off.

My husband didn’t love this. He liked to sleep in the traditional way with relative silence and without a whole movie and then a DVD menu playing a hypnotic loop of a tune. I mention all this because those heady initial days of dating someone and discovering all their delightful quirks slowly give way to getting to know them. During the past 10 years, I’ve learned that in addition to wanting to sleep like a loser, my husband has a bunch of other things he is sceptical of that I had always accepted as a normal part of life. I don’t believe in darkness, silence or regularly scheduled meals. He doesn’t believe in delicate washes, paid parking, and best-before dates, and – most shockingly – is totally disinterested in pop culture. This brings me to the one and only Justin Timberlake.

To be clear, Timberlake is, in so many respects, the worst. His public treatment of Britney Spears after their break-up was pretty shoddy. Janet Jackson was forced to accept the consequences of the “wardrobe malfunction” entirely alone post-Superbowl while he just went on being Justin Timberlake. Then there was the time that unhoused people were mocked at his wedding (yup, really). There was his treatment of Spears again. He also said, “Oh yeah, fo’ shiz fo’ shiz, Ginuwine, what’s up, homie?” Aloud. In earnest. In public. To Ginuwine. So yes, he sucks.

Yet in so many ways, he is also the best, an underrated and underappreciated cultural treasure whose particular skill is in reflecting at us just who we are. Let me explain.

In the early 1990s, it was depressingly normal for pizza to be stuffed-crust, for Sam Newman to be on television and for children to be commodified without a thought for their vulnerability. In this context, JT was plucked from obscurity and packaged to the masses on The Mickey Mouse Club. He gave us synthetic ’90s optimism because that was what we wanted.

Later in the decade, having made it through child-star puberty without veering into the difficulties of many of his contemporaries, he successfully transitioned into big-boy synchronised dance moves because tight choreography from teams of all-white dudes was where the dominant cultural appetite was.

In the noughties, when white artists began paying attention to R&B, there was Justified, Timberlake’s debut solo album (wherein all but one song had originally been written for Michael Jackson). Justified was a hit, JT was a successful breakout solo artist and people loved him.