Rihanna’s self-indulgent video is not clever. It’s pure misogyny
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Version 0 of 1. Where to start with Rihanna’s video for Bitch Better Have My Money? It seems traditional to apologise for being too white and past-it to comment on any video by a young black artist. But tough, because I’m not going to. Then there’s the fact that Rihanna has produced better songs than this (sub-Sia ear-dung), and the seven-minute video (co-directed by Rihanna herself) primarily comes across as a painfully obvious self-indulgent attempt to revive industry interest in her God-awful acting. However, people are mainly discussing the BBHMM video because it has a plot where a gangsta Rihanna is peeved with a male accountant (played by Hannibal’s Mads Mikkelsen). So with her henchwomen, Rihanna kidnaps his girlfriend (white, blonde, trophy, cuddling a pooch – so, you know, totally deserves it), and strips, drugs, tortures (swinging her upside down naked from a roof) and drowns her. The woman is last seen bobbing lifeless beneath gangsta Rihanna’s lilo. Nice. Thanks for co-directing that, Rihanna, and for demonstrating how female-on-female torture and murder are just as “SEXY!” as the male-on-female versions. We were all a little unsure before – but now we know. Perhaps more than Rihanna knows herself, because the BBHMM video also serves as a study in celebrity delusion: take away the skin colour and the “white spoilt bitch” has far more in common with real Rihanna than the gangsta Rihanna she’s portraying, whatever she likes to think of the state of her street cred. But I digress. The main issue here is surely: misogyny, who’s allowed to do it? And the only answer can be: nobody. It’s even difficult to excuse it on the grounds of artistic expression, given how crude is the video. I always felt that sometime Rihanna collaborator Eminem’s material featuring murdered women (Bonnie & Clyde; Kim) worked as urban cartoons, within which he made valid points about the fragile nature of uncontrolled male rage. By contrast, BBHMM’s plot (I’m angry with an accountant so I’m gonna kill his chick) has no nuance no artistry. Moreover, just because, in Rihanna’s musical sphere and beyond, there are misogynistic male artists, this doesn’t automatically give her the same “privileges”. Not only is reversing gender roles very pat and tired, BBHMM doesn’t even follow through properly. Rihanna already has the (clothed) male victim, to make her unwieldy plot work, but still the (unclothed) female is added – obviously to increase the sex quotient. Apparently, it’s not “HOT!” enough to spend a seven-minute video merely killing a man. Again comparing the similar furore surrounding Eminem, he never seemed to need to add naked male victims. (Funny that.) Is a video so important? Of course. Pop culture is one of the most powerful mediums we possess for talking to each other; part of the ongoing conversation in explaining ourselves to each other. Certainly, it’s not good enough to say that Rihanna is a globally successful artist calling the shots in a male-dominated industry that (yay!) is feminist enough. I’m sure we’re all feminist-enough on our lazy days, but since when did that mean that you get to craft a woman-hating, sub-snuff video, and that’s fine because the visuals are great and you’re a bestselling artist, mwah, mwah? Does citing artistic licence excuse misogyny in a video? As a well-known victim of domestic violence, maybe – astonishingly – Rihanna doesn’t give a flying one about other females? This is her choice. Men aren’t asked to make pro-male decisions every single moment of their lives. Still, as co-director, Rihanna can’t pretend this video was forced upon her. BBHMM raises issues not only of race (the plot did not require specifically white victims), class (the wealth signifiers of the female victim dehumanise her in time for her death), but also of blatant female-on-female hatred. At least it proves how it definitely ain’t any prettier (or more forgivable) than the male-on-female version. Life’s a beach, and then you fry Dermatologists have expressed concern over the new sunburn-art trend, where sunscreen is artfully placed to create shapes on people’s burned skin. What utter idiots, though it seems to be part of a wider malaise. During this hideous dehumanising heatwave, as I like to think of it, what has amazed me even more than the fact that so many people truly believe that they rock in a Hawaiian shirt (sorry, most of you don’t), has been the amount of pink, sore flesh on show. What is this – 1976? Has nobody heard of sun protection? Then there were the tans, even more proudly displayed because they were not “out of a bottle”. Well, I say “tans” but let’s call them by their real name – visible sun damage. Obviously I’m a sunscreen mega-nag – if my children want to ruin their skin (or, God forbid, worse), then it won’t be on my watch. Over the years, you may even have spotted a sullen woman on the beach, dressed head to toe in black, larded with factor 50, thunderously glaring, as though someone had stolen the flake out of her 99. That would be me judging you. Not only would I class allowing a child to burn as abuse, I would put adult tans firmly into the self-harm category. Clearly, I’m a hardliner, and a pasty, an unattractive, whiny one at that. Still, what explains this universal agreement to refuse to accept that tans are sun-damage? Don’t the tanned realise that people routinely mocked for using fake-tan gunk are being more responsible? As it is, I might be a sun-hating formerly goth killjoy. Actually, scratch that, start again: I’m definitely a sun-hating formerly goth killjoy, but oddly it seems that people like myself respect the strength of the sun far more than those who profess to love it. Roger, all this whining’s a bit off-colour The Wimbledon tennis championships wouldn’t be the same without players moaning about the all-white dress code. Now Roger Federer says it’s akin to the 1950s. When he sees old photos of Björn Borg and Boris Becker, their outfits have splashes of colour and the new strict rules are a pity, as players don’t get to “express themselves”. Come off it, Rog, and the others who have complained. The players can “express themselves” by… well, playing. Moreover, do players really have difficulties putting together white outfits? If all else fails, there’s this little shopping chain in the UK called John Lewis, which could kit them out. As it happens, Wimbledon is my manor and you can get John Lewis products delivered to the local Waitrose. Just trying to be helpful, people. A cynic might say the real problem is that players, and their sponsors, can’t festoon kit with logos, which renders Wimbledon a two-week television “dead zone” for advertising. You could make a case for this being tough on new players, but surely not the esteemed likes of Federer, especially as he’s only concerned with “expressing himself”. As you were, Wimbledon. |