Rihanna's Murder of Rapist in 'Man Down' Video: Empowering or Dangerous?

[poetic_pixie_13]

TW for rape, violence

Rihanna, who hit headlines in 2009 after being severely beaten by former boyfriend Chris Brown, has now come under fire for encouraging extreme violence in a new music video.

In the video for “Man Down,” which premiered on the BET network this week, the popular songstress is involved in an implied rape scene with a man she

Comments

[popehippo]

Um, why are we acting like this is something new? Let me think of some other examples of 'revenge murder' just off the top of my head.

(Ha, oh wait, because it's a black woman singing in reggae-style about it, of course)

[poetic_pixie_13]

Well, when nice, white country singers do it it's different, obvs.

[popehippo]

But of course, they're just singing about the things that exist in the real world, but POC talking about anger in THEIR songs, now that's just threatening DANGEROUS.

[shoujokakumei]

A+ comment

[bestdaywelived]

I love Goodbye, Earl ... although I think that there was some backlash against it when it came out.

[elialshadowpine]

Yup, I was going to post to this effect. I don't remember all the details because I was pretty young then, but I do remember there being backlash when it came out. "OMG man hating feminazis!", especially since the Dixie Chicks were pretty openly liberal in the very conservative country music scene.

[rosicrucian]

It's a cover version, but Adele too:

[sesmo]

And Rhianna is the one who agonizes about it. The other songs are all "whooo hoo" we killed someone. Hello double standard.