Alright. This has been going on for awhile now and for some reason I've been watching a lot of TMZ lately (I don't know why) so I'm aware I'm not breaking any news here. This is not a celebrity blog, and I completely understand if someone's reaction to what happened between Chris Brown and Rihanna is somewhat ambivalent (if only because said person doesn't really care about celebrity news or who Rihanna is or any "Umbrella-la-la-la"s). The thing is, I don't really think this is a run-of-the-mill celebrity scandal; so far it's brought up issues of sexism, race, relationship abuse, victimization, and parental abuse. A poll was done at a high school and found that 1 in 10 students thought that Rihanna had deserved the physical beating she received. TMZ has been asking celebrity's opinions and has been shocked by the amount who have no opinion or give condolensces to both parties, not just Rihanna. On discussion forums, users talk about how she had mouthed off, been cheating, had spread an STD, or otherwise had provoked the fight and abuse.
I've noticed a large age gap in the responses, older people, especially older women, seem to be more horrified and bring up terms like "abuse", or "beating". Younger men and women seem to be more concerned with why they got into an altercation, the physical attractiveness of both celebrities, and are more likely to make fun of the situation. Obviously, more attention needs to be payed to education and awareness of women's rights, healthy relationship interactions, and gender roles in our public schools.
And this is also where I disagree with the idea that there is just way too much "political correctness" in our society. Fuck that. Conservatives use this as a talking point and it's complete bullshit. There needs to be some serious social condemnation of behavior like this and of people who defend abuse of any kind. I would rather be a little too polite and say things like "Happy Holidays" than look at this sickening WOMEN'S tank top with bloody scrawl endorsing the broken up face of a starlet.
Offensive clothing happens in many forms...exhibit A would be the boycott in 2005 of Abercrombie and Fitch's lovely line of t-shirts endorsing teenage girls to use their tits to get ahead and taunting brunettes (wtf?). A group called the Women and Girls Foundation forced the company to pull certain tees and issue an apology.
UMMM....DATE RAPE ANYONE?
I LOVE WHEN CLOTHES GIVE ME AN EATING DISORDER
For examples of other types of clothing that give off subtle hints of this type of grossness see: Michael Stars, Juicy Couture, American Apparel.
So why can't clothing manufacturers be more ethical and think about issues that affect their customer like these ones? Women are by far the major consumer of most fashions, and all of these things are talked about openly now--abuse, health, gender equality, sexism, etc. Seventeen magazine, for example! They are constantly publishing letters to the editor that basically state the same thing: "thank you for writing such and such story about an issue, but why do your advertisements totally contradict your editorial sentiment?" These are issues that are just plain ignored by most fashion entities. It's definitely not a priority for most of the junior's brands out there, and the old way of doing things--and their wallets--get in the way of progress.
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