Tag Archives: Chris Brown

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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Could there ever be a same-sex Disney couple? Beauty & the Beast’s Bell and The Hunchback of Notre Dame‘s Esmeralda would make the hottest lesbian power couple EVER. [Mic]  

Can we stop talking about The Muppets having sex because, you know, they’re Muppets? [The Cut]

Netflix has changed its description of Disney’s Pocahontas from its originally sexist and racist write up. [THR, Native Appropriations]

In the wake of Chris Brown’s visa being denied for his Australian tour, it’s important to understand why black male artists are the only violent artists we decry for abusing women. [Noisey]

Planned Parenthood don’t “kill babies”, they save women’s lives. And their vaginas. [Al Jazeera]

The mansplanation of Taylor Swift’s 1989. [New Statesman]

The double edged sword that is Ryan Murphy: he creates roles for minorities in his myriad works but in turn reviles them. [HuffPo]

Do trans women only have value to the cisgender community (so, basically, culture at large) if they’re sufficiently hot? [This Ain’t Living]

ICYMI: How allegations of sexual assault against powerful men by the “wrong kinds of women” go unheard, in regards to Bill Cosby, Hugh Hefner and the publication of Hefner’s former partner and Girls Next Door star Holly Madison’s memoir, Down the Rabbit Hole.

Image via Dopey Beauty.

Baby, It’s a Wild World: Navigating Popular Culture as a Feminist.

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Recently, a friend questioned why I listen to Stone Cold Steve Austin’s podcast when he’s a known intimate partner abuser. He makes a fair point, as I have shunned Sean Penn and Michael Fassbender movies and R. Kelly and Chris Brown’s music (not that I really had an interest in them to begin with) because of their woman-hating ways. But by the same token, I listen to 2Pac, John Lennon and Prince despite knowing their histories of similar assaults.

I replied that you can’t watch, listen to or read anything these days where the creator and/or their characters haven’t committed a crime or moral transgression. There’s Woody Allen, Game of Thrones, Michael Jackson and, to varying degrees, Bryan Singer, Fassbender and Halle Berry of the current X-Men film.

A lot of the pop cultural morsels I’ve mentioned above I first consumed before I knew about their creators’ wicked ways. I got into professional wrestling and all its problems, rap and hip hop and their misogynist lyrics, and the Beatles and MJ as a teen whose feminist ideals were in their infant stages, but by no means as staunchly militant as they are today. It’s easy to make the conscious effort not to consume products made by artists whose questionable morals you’re already aware of, not so much when you’ve already got a passion for them. (I’ve had conversations with people in recent weeks who did not know about Singer’s rape allegations nor Fassbender’s violent streak; their inner torment about liking something made by someone reprehensible [or at least someone who’s committed reprehensible acts] was evident in their pained, conflicted responses.) When I pointed this out to my abovementioned podcast friend, he asked whether that meant I thought I was exempt from examining the issues with famous men being rewarded for their transgressions just because I happen to like the stuff they produce.

“Absolutely not,” I replied. But by the same token, if we were to avoid problematic pop culture, we’d never leave the house!

I think the most important thing is not to make excuses about the problematic pop culture we choose to consume. I can’t say if I’ll continue to listen to Austin’s podcast but if I do I’ll be sure not to be hypocritical about it. No excuses here.

Related: Why Are Famous Men Forgiven for Their Wrongdoings, While Women Are Vilified for Much Less?

Elsewhere: [The Smoking Gun] Stone Cole Steve Austin Roughs Up Girlfriend.

[Lipstick Alley] Flashback: Sean Penn Beat Madonna for 9 Hours in 1987; Charged with Felony Domestic Assault.

[TMZ] Girlfriend Fears Inglorious Basterds Star.

[Village Voice] Read the “Stomach-Churning” Sexual Assault Allegations Against R. Kelly in Full.

[MTV] Chris Brown Police Report Provides Details of Altercation.

[Lipstick Alley] Why Isn’t Tupac Remembered as a Rapist?

[Listverse] Top 10 Unpleasant Facts About John Lennon.

[Daily Mail] Sinead O’Connor Talks About Punch Up With Prince.

[Vanity Fair] Mia’s Story.

[Jezebel] Game of Thrones, Sex & HBO: Where Did TV’s Sexual Pioneer Go Wrong?

[Wikipedia] 1993 Child Sexual Abuse Accusations Against Michael Jackson.

[Slate] What We Know So Far About the Hollywood Sex Ring Allegations.

[People] Collision Course.

[TheVine] Can a Feminist Love Professional Wrestling?

[TheVine] Wonder Why They Call U Bitch.

[Social Justice League] How to Be a Fan of Problematic Things.

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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The feminising sexuality of 50 Shades of Grey. [ThinkProgress]

Pinkwashing: are breast cancer awareness campaigns and their associated pink products causing breast cancer? [Jezebel]

The feminist perils of Halloween costumes. [Thought Catalog]

Is there a new Steubenville? [Jezebel]

The underreporting of the gang rape of a student by a high-profile young man in China highlights the racial, class and sex issues surrounding another recent gang-rape in India. [Daily Life]

The penis as a weapon (NSWF). [Sociological Images]

Chris Brown’s rape perpetuates the myth that men are unrapeable. [Olivia Cole]

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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“If Men Could Menstruate” by Gloria Steinem. [Haverford]

Speaking of menses, if you like to wear your heart on your sleeve there’s now a t-shirt to celebrate getting your rocks off whilst on your period. Too bad it’s from the dubious American Apparel… [Birdee]

I’m going to Washington, D.C. in six weeks (New York in two and a bit!) and if the U.S. federal government shutdown is still in effect, Alyssa Rosenberg has compiled a list of non-governmental things to do in the city. [ThinkProgress]

Preorder your copy of Filmme Fatales issue three, in which I write about sex work in For a Good Time, Call…, along with many surely great pieces on feminism in film.

The season of the witch is upon us, what with The Witches of East End and American Horror Story: Coven premiering in the U.S. this week. The New Inquiry‘s latest issue is all about these supernatural ladies; subscribe for only $2 a month for all their witchy goodness. Some of the features are also available on their homepage.

Chris Brown was raped as a child; he was not “raring to go” and it was not “every boy’s fantasy”. [Feministing, Flavorwire]

Texas Governor Rick Perry claims his doddering wife “misspoke” and “put the wrong word in the wrong place” when she admitted that she thinks abortion should—or “could”—be the choice of a woman. It make me sick that Perry feels the need to infantilise and “correct” his wife for her apparent conversational faux pas because it doesn’t jive with his policies. Luckily there may be a new Governor on the rise for Texas, the unquestionably pro-choice filibustering Wendy Davis! [Feministing]

To rape-joke or not to rape-joke, that is the question. [Bitch Magazine]

Pop stars and “Naked Hot Body Fatigue”. [Jezebel]

Women in the World also discuss the feminism of Britney Spears’ “Work, Bitch”.

Image via Birdee.

Magazines: Covers Worth Talking About.

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The first cover listed here to grab my attention was Hillary Clinton for New York magazine, but then Miley came along and blew that out of the (pool) water as she is wont to do.

The accompanying interview for her Rolling Stone cover was done in the days following her much-talked-about MTV VMAs performance, which is discussed at length inside. And rest assured, there are lots of scantily clad shots to compliment her tongue-thrusting on the cover.

Next comes Chris Brown for Jet, a cover which doesn’t necessarily grab the eye as the others do, but it’s what Brown says inside, a snippet of which is captured on the cover, that’s noteworthy. He who is a perpetuator of violence himself identifies with Trayvon Martin, the teen who was shot dead a year and a half ago in Florida in an alleged self-defence. His killer, neighbourhood watchman George ZImmerman, was acquitted of his murder in July this year, and was involved in an apparent domestic violence incident with his estranged wife earlier this month. His wife later refused to press charges.

Now, I’m not saying that Brown can’t identify with a fellow young black man who has been victimised, but equating murder with justified criticism for intimate partner violence and a lack of remorse for said violence is a bit rich.

Finally, in the wake of the mall massacre in Nairobi which, it is believed, had a woman at the helm of the terrorist operation, Pakistan’s Newsweek has a cover story on the rise of female terrorist. I think alternative cover art would have conveyed their message just as well as explosive-tampons…

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Images via The Hollywood Gossip, Vanity Fair, NY Daily News, Yahoo! Finance.

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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Is there such a thing as a bad Olsen twin movie? [Rookie]

Chris Brown, R. Kelly, Surfer Blood… What are we willing to overlook in order to enjoy pop culture? [Grantland]

How many times will you see your parents before they die? [See Your Folks]

“Bindi Irwin: Feminist Warrior?” [MamaMia] 

In defence of Sex & the City. [The New Yorker]

And, furthermore, in defence of Miranda Hobbes. [Women & Hollywood]

Why women in sport matter. [Lip Mag]

How to ask about someone’s ethnicity the right way. [Jezebel]

Image via Ask Your Feet.

On (Rest of the) Net.

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Rachel Hills’ TEDx Talk on the sex myth, the topic of her upcoming book of the same name. [YouTube]

Defending The Onion‘s Chris-Brown-“I-Always-Thought-Rihanna-Was-the-Woman-I’d-Beat-to-Death” joke. [The Frisky]

Stop calling Amanda Bynes crazy. [TheVine]

What did Tony Abbott mean when he said “women of calibre” should be encouraged to have children and should feminists be speaking out in favour of the Coalition’s superior paid parental leave scheme? [Daily Life]

“Panels Full of Women”: on fetishising female news voices. [News Junkee]

Debunking the prevalence of sex-selective abortions in Australia. [Daily Life]

“See a Woman Reading? Leave Her Alone.” The perils of reading and subsequent street harassment. [Gender Focus]

The Great Gatsby doesn’t do the “newly liberated” flapper justice. [Collectors Weekly]

Manic pixie dream guy? [Nerve]

The sexism of Star‘s Most Annoying Celebrities list. [The Times Magazine]

Denmark’s latest televisual offering: women stripping naked in front of a panel of two men who critique their bodies. Obviously, this is a crazy and sexist idea for a TV show, but is it any crazier or more sexist than, say, Snog Marry Avoid? Both have an underlying message that women aren’t good enough, with one referring to the naked body whilst the other takes aim at how and with what a woman cloaks herself. Your thoughts? [Bust]

TV: Glee—Chris Brown is a Guilty Pleasure.

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Last week it was SVU, this week Glee is undertaking the Chris Brown treatment.

While Chris Brown is hardly in the guilty pleasures league of Wham!, Barry Manilow and the Spice Girls—the other shameful secrets of the New Directions—it was nice to see Glee address the notion of “liking the art but not the artist”.

This is an issue I’ve been grappling with lately as I write some wrestling-related pieces; for all its racism, misogyny, homophobia, ableism and promotion of a rigid type of masculinity, is it still okay for a level-headed person to like professional wrestling? Much the same, is it okay for someone who acknowledges Brown for the “douchebag” he is (“I don’t think that douche is a strong enough word to describe him,” interjects Unique) to still like his music?

I personally have a couple of Brown songs on my iTunes (purchased pre-Rihanna beating, might I add?!), and against my best efforts, I do quite like “Turn Up the Music”, but I refuse to pay for anything he’s selling and make it my personal mission instead to compensate him with as much bad press as possible. I have even been known to exit a pumping dancefloor when a Brown song comes on, if only for the principle of it.

In researching one of the abovementioned wrestling articles, I came across a couple of articles that really resonate with this idea. In an article about female stereotypes in video games, Anita Sarkeesian asserts it is “both possible and even necessary to simultaneously enjoy media while being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects.” Similarly, in her fantastic post about the intersection of rap, feminism and cunnilingus, which I linked to here a couple of weeks ago, Maddie Collier urges us to acknowledge the instances our pop culture of choice “sickens and disappoints us” in order to “fully appreciate the moments when it’s good and kind and real”. And the Social Justice League has a whole article on the topic.

After incurring the ire of the feminists, Jake decides to change his guilty pleasure song choice from Chris Brown to another Brown: Bobby. While this is problematic in itself—which Kitty and Artie point out to Jake, who’s apparently oblivious to the whole Bobby and Whitney thing—it highlighted the fact that it is “My Prerogative” to like problematic pop culture. Just as long as we’re acknowledging where it goes wrong, right?

But “does it really matter what a couple of high school kids think?” Yes. Because as avid pop culture consumers they’re shaping the attitudes of tomorrow. And unless we’re educating them in the ways of navigating pop culture safely, the seemingly widely held belief that hitting your partner is justified will continue on into the next generation.

Related: Special Victims Unit Takes on Chris Brown & Rihanna.

My Thoughts on Chris Brown.

My Weekend with Wrestlers.

Elsewhere: [Think Progress] Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes VS. Women Series is Up—And It’s Great.

[The Pantograph Punch] Eat It Up & Lay Wit It: Hip Hop, Cunnilingus & Morality in Entertainment.

[Social Justice League] How to Be a Fan of Problematic Things.

Image via Ch131.

TV: Special Victims Unit Takes on Chris Brown & Rihanna.

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Perhaps to make up for casting convicted rapist Mike Tyson on a show that largely promotes victims rights, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit holds a very unflattering microscope to the thankfully recently-ended tumultuous relationship of Chris Brown and Rihanna.

While the episode did cast a negative light on the predominantly black rap industry, “perpetuating the stereotype that hip hop artists are thugs”, we have to remember that the storyline was a direct commentary on Chris Brown’s beating of Rihanna four years ago and her subsequently taking him back.

Take, for example, the character of Micha Green, a young ingénue of an aging hip hop prodigy. Sounds a lot like Jay Z’s working relationship with Rihanna. And Micha’s lover and assailant’s, Caleb Bryant, initials are the same as one Chris Brown’s. Since giving Caleb the last name of Brown or Black would be too on the nose (and a little bit racist?), Micha is the one with a colour for a surname.

Further to that, the evidence photos of Micha’s mangled face are leaked to the press, and a restraining order is slapped on Caleb, who gets a tattoo on his torso that eerily resembles Brown’s neck tattoo of an alleged Mexican sugar skull that eerily resembles Rihanna’s post-beating face. Caleb might have “the Bryant team” (an obvious nod to Brown’s #TeamBreezy) on his side, but he’s playing “Russian Roulette” (Rihanna’s 2009 song) with Micha’s life.

Both Caleb and Micha, and, by extension, Brown and Rihanna, grew up with abusive fathers but SVU is sure to make a point of difference between the two couples, with Sgt. Munch suggesting they double date.

There’s a fair share of victim-blaming from witnesses and fans of the couple, which mirrors similar attitudes to Rihanna that continue to this day. “She shouldn’t have dissed him” lest she get beat in SVU becomes “she shouldn’t have taken him back” in the discourse of today.

Again, the show’s treatment of the “incident”, as Brown is so fond of calling it, was particularly harsh, with Micha’s “inevitable” death at the hands of Caleb, but if it helps to show that domestic violence doesn’t just “happen once”, then SVU can continue to paint as ruthless a picture of intimate partner violence as they like.

I’m just glad Rihanna got out before what happened to Micha happened to her…

Related: Rihanna & Domestic Violence.

My Thoughts on Chris Brown.

Elsewhere: [Jezebel] Piling on Rihanna Accomplishes Nothing.

Image via Crushable.

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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On the anti-women nail polish name trend. [xoVain]

In the vein of Chris Brown apologists, collectively known as #TeamBreezy, Oscar Pistorius now has his own legion of defenders, #Pistorians. [Vice]

Why do Teen Moms keep becoming Teen Moms? [Jezebel]

Being anti-sports in Australian culture. [Daily Life]

The problem with using the “What if it was your daughter/sister/wife” rape analogy:

“The Steubenville rape victim was certainly someone’s daughter. She may have been someone’s sister. Someday she might even be someone’s wife. But these are not the reasons why raping her was wrong. This rape, and any rape, was wrong because women are people. Women are people, rape is wrong, and no one should ever be raped. End of story.” [The Belle Jar]

Spoilers and pleasure, or rather, lack thereof. [The Atlantic]

Image via Beauty School Dropouts.