Jessica

Vozel

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February 23, 2009

It’s Chris Brown, Not Rihanna, Who Deserves the Scrutiny

When celebrities become microcosmic representations for social issues – eating disorders and the pressure to be thin; drug and alcohol addiction; mental illness; domestic abuse – their public struggles become a vehicle for both understanding and opining on those issues. The celebrities may suffer from this public scrutiny, but it’s the second layer of consequences – the ones that reach the plebeians living our lives in the real world – that concerns me.

Last week, police photos were released of pop star Rihanna (real name Robyn Fenty), 21, taken after she was allegedly physically abused by her boyfriend, hip hop star Chris Brown, 19. While only the involved parties know the specifics, some accounts allege that before the Grammy awards earlier this month, Brown attempted to strangle Fenty, leaving her unconscious and her face badly bruised.

In the weeks following, there has been plenty of support for Rihanna and vilification of Chris Brown. Her MySpace page is flooded with supportive messages. His music has been pulled from radio stations around the country. Rihanna had rap mogul Jay-Z on her side. Brown lost two endorsement deals.

And then there’s the other, more troubling side to this issue. The Chicago Tribune quotes a high school student as saying about the abuse, “Ha! She probably did something to provoke it." Several comments to Chris Brown’s MySpace page are of a similar sentiment – many pledge 100 percent loyalty, accuse Rihanna of provoking the violence and opine about the unfairness of the justice system for favoring women.  

Some fans are just unwilling to admit their idols have flaws or permit them to fall from grace. But the media has played its part in this, too. Gossip magazines have obsessed over what sparked the couple’s fight. Did Rihanna get violent first? Did she say or do something to cause the violence? And how bad was it, really?

That gossip rags are asking these questions speaks volumes about prevalent attitudes toward relationship violence. What does it matter, in the end, how the fight began, or what the intensity of the abuse was? If Rihanna threw Brown’s keys out the car window, as one telling of the night’s events suggests, does that make the violence inevitable? If Brown slapped her, instead of punching or strangling her, does that make it more forgivable?

E!News asks point-blank, “Was Rihanna behaving badly before her pre-Grammy Brown bust-up?” No matter how cute and clever the author of that sentence found his alliteration to be, it suggests something very clear: If a woman “behaves badly,” whatever happens next – even a “bust-up” – is deserved. For comparison, a sidebar to that story entices us with “Find out if Chris Brown’s buds are surprised by his bad boy behavior!” That’s right – this is all just a case of bad behavior, with Brown and Rihanna being on equal footing in that regard.

MTV, in a particularly tasteless effort at ratings-baiting, aired a special called Rihanna and Chris: Love In Trouble. According to MTV’s web site, the special attempts to answer questions like: “Will Rihanna emerge as a victim or a symbol of strength to her many fans?” Well, heaven forbid she emerge a victim! After all, she is one. Denying that minimizes what happened and suggests that there’s something wrong with acknowledging it. Being victimized does not preclude Rihanna becoming a source of strength for her fans, who may face abuse in their own lives. Chris Brown is the one deserving of shame here, and yet the questions are aimed at Rihanna.

To be fair, MTV does ask this: “What will Brown do next to help himself if the allegations are true?” In other words, how will he become famous again? An AP reporter told MTV, “Maybe the public could forgive (Brown) if we didn't know who (the victim) was." Domestic violence, in this “expert’s view,” is forgivable as long as one of the two parties is not famous.

All of this together perpetuates the culture of victim-blaming. We should feel sympathy for Rihanna, especially in light of the police photos that were released without her consent. But even sadder is that, according to the Family Violence Prevention Fund, one in 10 teenagers are abused in the context of romantic relationships, and girls and women aged 16-24 are abused more than any other age group.

If Brown is “forgiven” and Rihanna’s role in her own abuse is questioned, rather than Brown facing scrutiny for being the active abuser, such statistics will never improve.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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