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May 14, 2009 - By Malcolm Clayton
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Three weeks and $50,000 in bail later, Brown and Rihanna were back together. A week after that, a survey of 200 teens was conducted in Boston in which an astonishing 46% of the teens felt that the incident was entirely Rihanna’s fault. Two months and one leaked photo of Rihanna’s beaten face after that, Brown’s lawyers may stop his trial from ever happening by claiming that the publication of the photo makes it impossible to find an unbiased jury for the trial.
This incident has undoubtedly revealed some gaping holes in today’s society. There are few people out there who can now reasonable think that domestic violence is not an important issue. How can anyone ignore this violent wake up call? Sure it is easy to put the issue aside when it is just another nameless face at the back of the paper, just another story about someone you’ve never met who was abused.
But this time is different. When someone as famous as Brown beats equally famous Rihanna, it gets front page news coast-to-coast. The media jumped on this story faster than it jumped onto Obama. Domestic violence happens on a daily basis but until someone famous suffers from it we hear little about the issue. We are not told of the struggle faced by those •normal• people abused. That all falls to the wayside, ignored by the media and by society. Three women are killed each day by their husbands or boyfriends, more than 300,000 pregnant women are abused during their pregnancy each year, one in five teenagers in serious relationships have been physically abused, one in three women will suffer from domestic violence in their lifetimes and yet only because someone famous is affected, do we hear about it.
Now the media bears some of the responsibility for this poor coverage but much of the blame must be shared by us as well. The media shows us what we want to see and sadly enough we do not care about the victims of abuse. If it doesn’t involve death, congress or someone famous the general public simply does not care. If it weren’t for Brown beating Rihanna, little or no attention would have been paid by the news agencies to the ongoing issue of domestic violence. We as a society wouldn't care less except for the fact that this time it involved a pair of superstars.
Now what does it say about our society if almost half of our teens think that Rihanna being beaten was entirely her fault? Brown's stardom is so strong as to inspire blind loyalty. But not simply blind loyalty, loyalty that blinds itself to reality. Fans, so in love with a man and his songs that he can brutally beat a woman and they will not condemn him for his actions. In fact, they blame the woman he beat. They blame the woman he threatened to kill. According to one poster in a forum discussing the lyrics to “Forever†by Chris Brown, “Even though chris done that to rihanna I know he wont do it to me and wont let me fall.I love you.xxx.†This is simply alarming. We know that fans are, well, fanatics but people need to wake up. Brown physically abused Rihanna and no singing or songwriting ability, no matter how amazing, should put a man above the law or morality.
In fact, idolization allows news organizations to make profit off of our obsessions. A photo taken of Rihanna's bruised and beat up face was obtained by TMZ, a news organization that specializes in paparazzi. They quickly saw profit they could make from showing her most vulnerable moment. In revealing the photo, TMZ gave Brown a way out of this mess. Once released, the photo was shown on TV networks country-wide and posted across the Internet. Practically everyone has seen it. The photo has been so widespread that Brown's lawyers are now claiming that since the release of the photo, any jury selected for the trial would be biased against Brown. This is a valid argument according to the letter of the law and will probably stand. By releasing the photo, an independent company seeking profit thwarted the justice process. Brown will most likely not even see trial.
Justice weeps. The fans swoon, the media CEOs smile at their profits and we look the other way. Thankfully the domestic violence that our society pushes under the rug and hides from its eyes has now been plastered all over television, newspapers and the Internet. At the least we have been forced to deal with its existence even if most of us still do little about it.
If you are interested in doing something, check out Mystrength, a club on campus dedicated to raising awareness and helping to stop domestic violence. They meet Fridays at lunch in room 243.
* statistics about domestic violence taken from: http://www.ndvh.org/get-educated/abuse-in-america/
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