The Sociological Ear

Or, Why I Don’t Give a Fuck if Rihanna’s Seeing Chris Brown Again, Mainstream Media

1) It’s none of my goddamn business. Despite what modern media has told you or me, we don’t actually have any right to a celebrity’s private life. No celebrity signs away their right to privacy when they are signed into the business. No celebrity consents to having their privacy invaded when they are in the public eye. The idea that a celebrity is meant to entertain us off the stage or outside the theater is based on a selfish ideal of entitlement that we, as spectators, are expected to share in order to facilitate and hapharzardly justify the means to continously invade said privacy. 

1a) Even if “we’ve all had a friend…”/been there, it’s still none of our goddamn businesses (I’m looking at you, Jezebel).  Note: this doesn’t mean that you cannot share your experiences with domestic abuse, just that you are not an expert on the matter. Your experiences are not the special key to the lock that separates Rihanna’s/Chris Brown’s life from the mainstream media at large. Sure, you can comment (I’m not sure why you’d want to), but you cannot actualize, summarize, or infantilize. You definitely cannot link your experiences (or lack there of) to what may or may not be happening in the relationship at large.

2) I understand that my feelings about Rihanna or Chris Brown do not justify me discussing what the two may/not be doing with each other. Of course, I don’t like Chris Brown! I also don’t know Chris Brown. I just know that I don’t like abusers. My adoration of and love for Rihanna does not magically transform itself into an access pass for bullshit and gossip. 

2a) I also understand that concern trolling is the absolute worst.

Concern is not a magical slut-shaming, abuse-shaming blanket. Insulting Rihanna’s choices because I love Rihanna is like trapping Rihanna in her Barbados condo because I’m afraid she’s going to get sunburt. You don’t hurt or insult a person in order to save a person. You definitely don’t infringe upon someone’s life in the efforts of somehow saving or redeeming it. Let’s all be glad that Rihanna and Brown are both consenting adults, but even in the instance that they were not, concern trolling would still be a shitty excuse for helping. It’s never done anyone good, people.

3) I totally understand that not all survivors of abuse desire to be heroes or role models. Sometimes people want to live their lives—and yes, that does include not commenting on a matter frequently or even at all. It took Rihanna ten months before she commented on the incident at all, even though the media and many entitled assholes cried out for her side of the story. Sometimes people don’t have a side to the story. Sometimes the story gets ripped up or set back quietly on the shelf.

In layman’s terms: Rihanna doesn’t owe you a goddamn thing. She does not have to explain herself to you or your children. She is not, and does not want to be, the role model for domestic abuse survival. No one cares if you are offended or if your children are suddenly confused on all matters of domestic abuse. Sit down with your children—and maybe even yourself—and sort that shit out.

3a) I totally understand, and accept, that celebrities are not role models.

Just in case you start mobbing for that public apology.

Lastly—and in case you forgot—this really is none of anyone’s business. This is not “dirt,” “payback,” “garden-variety abuse,” worth rationalizing or demoralizing. It’s sure as hell not a time for more abuse jokes (like you didn’t make those shits enough after the actual incident.)  When you report on matters such as these, when you demand things from survivors like Rihanna or even those who are in or have been in her place, you are telling them that their steps to move on, their attempts to find normalcy and stability in the aftereffects of an incident or a history that could’ve possibly changed their lives are either not good enough, not important enough (to be a role model) and not Right.

Survivors are as different as their stories. We should never expect a certain reaction from someone in such a situation. We definitely should never tell a person how to feel about it, when to feel these things, or how to react to anyone involved. This is for the the survivor alone. 

I feel that people confuse celebrity popularity with access, as if a celebrity’s willingness to engage in the trade they love best (acting, music, etc) automatically equals their consent to be picked apart and commented on. Especially in cases like Rihanna’s, where it is so easy to victim blame and rip her apart on things like guilt/appearance/provocation/etc, the sense of entitlement that American media (and by extension, the American public) feels is overwhelming. We don’t actually own a celebrity! Fantasies and record sells do not make for familiarity and access. Celebrities do not owe you because you went to their show and bought their album.

In order for situations such as these to facilitate proper discussion, this entitlement needs to change. We must stop thinking that our feelings, experiences, or the American media allow us to comment freely on the lives of others. We certainly must end the idea that role models are instant in survivors who are in the public eye, even for feminist/womanist discussion. One must consent to being a role model, to having their experiences broadcast so effortlessly over and over again, to millions of people, to hundreds of countries. We need to remember that for the most part, no celebrity really consents to much of the stories printed about them. It doesn’t, and shouldn’t, just “come with the job.” It should require consent—which is why I’m never upset when a celebrity reacts negatively to a story printed about them, regardless of how true it is.

So: here’s to US Weekly, and Jezebel, and Clutch Magazine—and all the media pundits who make us feel like it’s valid or justifiable. It’s not. Never has been, never will be.