I have found the recent debates surrounding the Rihanna/Chris Brown situation troubling. I think they speak of a tendency to think of people as merely the acts they commit, and to see these acts as universal cultural signifiers which are the same for all people and to which there should be only one response. In terms of domestic violence, the expected response consists of anger, revilement and castigation towards the abuser, usually of a permanent nature. I in no way seek to ?apologise? for what anyone has done, I just wish to analyse the context where anything other than the response I have outlined is deemed as apologetics, and suggest why I think this might ultimately inhibit any open discussion on the subject of violence within relationships.
For this purpose, I will mainly talk about Chris Brown, The Abuser. What do we know about him and this situation? Well, not much really. We don?t know how many times he spoken to Rihanna. We don?t know how she feels. We don?t know what, if any, resolution has been reach between the two. We don?t really know anything about their relationship at all. We don?t know what he thinks, or does, and we don?t know how he feels when he sits alone at night. And yes, you might argue I am projecting my own feelings and experiences on to a horrible situation of which I have no great insight and thus have no right to do so. Well yeah, isn?t that what everyone is doing? As I have said, we ?know? very little about Chris Brown, and what we do know is highly mediated. Even in the rare moments that we do catch a glimpse of a less mediated version of this reviled character ? such as the recent tweets after the Grammys ? we don?t really get anything more than a snapshot of euphoria.
Ultimately, I think the way we see and talk about domestic violence inhibits the kind of reaction people would like to see from characters such as Chris Brown. Not raising your fists to a woman is almost a fundamental tenant of male honour; just below fucking kids and significantly higher than walking out on your family. To violate this tenant is bad enough, but to admit that it was your fault and to apologise also means wilfully surrendering a part of what it means to be a man. You are forever a monster; nothing you can ever do will erase what you?ve done, even a full and frank apology. In this situation what else can you do but not accept or try to shift the burden of responsibility for the horrendous act you have committed. To do so would be an assault on the self which many are unable to bear. Under this climate and in the ego centric world Chris Brown and many others live in, such an assault is unthinkable and unacceptable.
Of course, not everyone views domestic violence in these terms ? the women (and many others) who posted the supporting tweets are a testament to that. But I do feel we have to recognise that these are both cultural narratives which have to be taken into account. The connections people build with celebrities ? now more than ever ? are connections of the self and with the ego of that person. The same affect applies. It is easier to ignore or shift the blame of someone you have been encouraged to adore than it is to truly accept and evaluate the wider meaning of those acts in almost the only other narrative available to you.
So there are two options in my view, dismantle celebrity culture as we know it or try to have a more fluid appreciation of violence within relationships. Seeing domestic violence as beyond the pale is counterproductive, seeing people as monsters and arseholes is irrelevant. However unpleasant it is, I believe you have to attempt to understand the motives of the abuser. For that, I think people have to be able to feel that can be free and open about what they have done and why they have done it. I think we have to see them, and they have to see themselves, as redeemable and human. Most of all I think we have to recognise that domestic violence is the product of relationships between people, (and not just the one between the two people involved in the violence), with all the specificities and complexities that entails.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/26/bad-people-fancy-eva-wiseman?INTCMP=SRCH
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Source: http://graunwatch.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/rude-boy-guest-post-by-lawrencejgreen/
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