THE PLANK AUGUST 31, 2009
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Celebrity worship is tiresome if largely benign. Celebrity justice, by contrast, is corrosive on any number of levels. Sadly, the case of R&B singer/woman beater Chris Brown increasingly looks like a nasty example of the latter.
Sure, Brown got a few years probation and six months community service. But if this Larry King interview set to air Wednesday is any indication, Brown doesn't need some alone time picking up trash on the freeway; he needs hard-core psychotherapy and a giant "Warning" label slapped across his forehead.
Going on and on about what a nice, nonviolent soul he is, Brown (looking oh-so-tender in his baby blue sweater and bowtie) tells Larry he has no memory of brutalizing then-amour Rihanna. The singer also notes that, when he was growing up, his mother's husband was abusive and so no one was ever around to teach young Chris the basics of managing his emotions.
Sad? Of course. But, if true, what we have here is a guy who never learned the basics of self control and who has experienced at least one rage-induced blackout. And since two previous instances of domestic violence between Brown and Rihanna are known to the public (how many others are not?), the crime in question, while more extreme than prior episodes, isn't as out of character as Brown would have us--or himself--believe.
I don't care how cute and famous this kid is; he is a menace to himself and to any woman who comes within 50 yards of his contrite-puppy self-delusions. I suppose one could argue that Brown doesn't serve to serve any time for beating the bejesus out of his girlfriend and threatening to kill her. But returning him to society without even attempting to address his scary rage issues is itself a crime.
6 comments
The dancing wedding people seem to think he's pretty awesome.
- csmiller
August 31, 2009 at 1:58pm
MC: Celebrity worship is tiresome if largely benign. george: Largely, indeed. With one important exception. The media. I'm sure you will concur that in order to become a bona fide celebrity, reporters in the mainstream media must sign an affidavit stating they see nothing at all compromising about Gridiron Club attendees schmoozing with their colleagues in the government or White House Correspondent Dinner diners palling around with those in power. By the way, is Rupert Murdock still in charge of collecting the signatures each year? Or has the torch finally been passed down to Chris Mathews? More immediately, though, I do agree that show biz celebrity Chris Brown's "punishment" was nothing short of obscene. It's apalling when, 40 years after the last great feminist wave [that, through my wife at the time, I was smack in the middle of], stuff like this still goes on. It's time for Oprah and the folks on The View to dust off a few copies of Valerie Salanas's Scum Manifesto. Maybe she went too far when she shot Andy Warhol but one can readily understand why any women might want to join a society for cutting up men while ingesting this farcical "justice". Did anyone on the court see the photograph's of the beating he inflicted on her?! george
- iambiguous
August 31, 2009 at 2:52pm
- I heard (from someone who has worked both sides of the CA justice system) that this a standard sentence for his offense. Further, aren't tens of thousands of inmates are being released from California prisons? When a judge is facing a zero sum situation, he must consider who will be put on the street to make room for Brown. Many states face overcrowding and it isn't the judge who determines who will be released. Do we really want a first time offender going in for a year or two and the guy coming out to make room for him is doing his second round of a fifteen or twenty year sentence? A sentencing guideline applies at both ends & serious crimes are done by people how served decades. In the past year (here in Indiana) I know of three or four guys who went on sprees immediately after 'serving' 20+ years. They were more than happy a first time offender was making news at the other end of the state. Maybe a fixed-up and harmless dude would go out so Brown could have his bunk...What if it's someone who is more dangerous to more people? I can barely watch those prison shows because I don't see many folks I'd want roaming around without a job. -
- michael
August 31, 2009 at 4:43pm
Michelle paints a picture of Chris Brown that fits to a T each of the abusive men I've ever known, including a dearth of punishment, and yet seems to write with a tone of shock. A dear friend just recently got an abusive man out of her life, after three years of on-again, off-again cohabitation and violence, and just like the small handful of other abusers I've witnessed in person or judged on a jury, you could change the names and the guy would exactly fit Michelle's description of Brown. I don't actually believe in hell, but I do believe that there is a special place in hell for men who beat women. Yet there is no special place in that portion of hell for Chris Brown; he is a completely ordinary abuser, and his treatment by the criminal justice system is if anything harsher than is the norm for men who are caught before they kill. No, the only really special pedestal being earned in the fiery nether goes to Michelle's colleagues in the media, particularly the producers of Larry King Live, who choose to glorify this common example of his lowly, craven class.
- rhubarbs
August 31, 2009 at 5:33pm
Five years and Chris Brown will be in the news for beating someone again. Thug 4 Life was never truer.
- CRS9TNR
August 31, 2009 at 6:01pm
Michelle Cottle mentions Larry King. But it takes Rhubarbs correctly to give to King and his production team the scorn and condemnation they powerfully deserve in featuring Chris Brown in the way one knows in advance they will. King will fill in the nexus between celebrity obsession and celebrity “justice” by perversely reverse engineering it. Which is to say: he will prey on the sensationalism of Brown’s odious beating of Rihanna, give Brown an hour, or however long, of softball questions all emanating from an posture of intent, understanding sympathy, which then will allow Brown, under expert public relations handling, to elicit a kind of market tested sympathy as he explains away his unspeakable behavior. In doing so, he will actually enhances his celebrity and his career. No one, least of all Larry King, will call out the cute, bow tied, out of the fifties emperor’s butt nakedness. King’s show, as he does this kind of programming, sickeningly indicts what is called mainstream media and the viewership that supports it. One other slight, sidebar thought: “thug” in this context is too good an epithet for the likes of Brown. Insofar as it connotes toughness, bad as a good, calling Brown a thug honors him in a way he does not deserve. Better to call him something with no connotation of toughness, with something that inverts toughness, like an abuser, or a punk, or a chicken shit or some such.
- basman
September 1, 2009 at 2:10am