Rihanna and Eminem on domestic violence
Rihanna’s newest song out (that I know of, being a bit of a musical snob. I’m more Patti Smith than Rihanna really) Love the Way you Lie (here for those who are blessed enough not to have heard it yet) is accompanied by the linked music video and deals with an issue which pretty much everyone who has seen a gossip mag in the last year or so knows is pretty relevant to Rihanna’s life. Which is why I find it interesting that it completely glamourises (in my opinion) something which is far from glamorous: domestic violence. The chorus runs “Just gonna stand there and watch me burn, that’s alright because I like the way it hurts”
Really Rihanna? Is that the message you want to be sending women about domestic violence? Eminem loves to take the issues no one else sings about and turn them into his own tortured bonanza – as he did with the obsessive ‘Stan’ in the song of the same name – but what he’s doing is not necessarily giving us an insight into the issue but making it cool.
As Randy Susan Meyers pointed out in this article in the Huffington Post, the music video shows Eminem spewing out the usual justifications which abusive men use to excuse their behaviour, while Rihanna erotically sings straight into the camera.
Overall I find this song/video to be a really quite despicable use of a real, horrific issue to sell music (and sex) to a huge number of young men and women.
Also, as an aside it’s really annoying. Not as annoying as Umbrella though.
Dagnabbit.
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