Do not watch them. Do something else. The Walking Dead season premieres tonight, and that stuff is going to be showing all day. You could read a good book. You could put on some good music and dance in your living room.
However, the Grammy Award organizers are apologizers for abuse. In fact, it sounds like the whole entertainment industry will look the other way when a thug like Chris Brown will batter a woman.
So I’m sure you could find something better to do.
I wouldn’t watch the Grammy awards unless you paid me large amounts of money to do so. And you’d have to pay even larger amounts to get me to pay attention to the show.
I haven’t watched the Grammy’s since 1988, so that’s not going to change. I’m not surprised at the institutional amnesia involved here. How many racist assholes out there calling Whitney Houston a “crack hoe” (i used to have such colorful facebook friends), forget about how Booby Brown used her as a punching bag all those years ago.
A couple of things blow my mind:
What the fuck? The entertainment industry needs Jay-Z to remind them to be decent fucking human beings?
What in the high holy hell is this shit? Once again, a performer makes some milquetoast statement of support for Rihanna and people flip their shit?
What the hell is wrong with everyone? I don’t care if Chris Brown is the best goddamned singer in the entire fucking galaxy– he abused his girlfriend. It just goes to show who is really really important, doesn’t it?
I wasn’t planning on watching it, but not because I had any idea who Chris Brown is. I guess now I have one more reason not to waste my time.
Not watching the Grammys because of Chris Brown is cool. How about the ads for Bible degrees and for the National Prolife Alliance on this blog?
I even boycotted the superbowl because of Chris Brown.
That is to say, he’s obviously an a-hole, but it’s hard to boycott something that you never watch anyway.
Glen Davidson
I won’t be watching either. I have to catch up on some the CSI shows I’ve recorded.
Since I work in the music industry (and have a couple of bands up for an award tonight) I feel a bit shamed to even have a tenuous connection to support for domestic abuse. While I never watch the show anyway, I’m certainly encouraging all of my friends to take your advice and watch The Walking Dead instead.
getoveryourselves wrote:
It’s 2012. Do you really not have a fucking clue how internet ads work by this point?
Even if I had a television set I’d not watch the Grammys.
Tonight I’ll start packing for my trip to New Orleans (Hello, Mardi Gras! Hello, Beignets!) and listen to my local NPR station. When I’ve done what packing I can, I’ll continue working on a lace scarf for a friend. Fucking yarnovers: they work my last gay nerve.
I’ll be watching the BAFTA ceremony this evening. It’s being hosted by the ever splendid Stephen Fry!
I haven’t watched an awards show in decades and didn’t even know the Grammys were tonight. I can only imagine these events are worse then they were the last time I watched one, and they were some of the most mind-numbingly boring things back then.
This jumped out at me from the link:
The Grammys were not the victim, you jackass.
The linked article, which is very good, features comments from several celebrities about this character Brown and his assaultive behavior.
Collectively, the quotes and the behavior of the celebrity community (is it a community?) provide more evidence that being bright and thoughtful, let alone ethical, are not requirements for being a celebrity.
Don’t Worry. I’ll be watching basketball games tonight instead.
The worst part is that Chris Brown is a really, really crappy artist anyway. Even among people I know who do like pop music, there’s a music-based hatred for him (aside from the obvious Captain McPunches-A-Girl aspect). Apparently, he’s only ever made one good song, and even then, there’s another song by another artist that sounds EXACTLY the same, meaning that he’s rendered completely pointless as a musician.
In short, Chris Brown just needs to disappear. Get the hell out of American popular culture. I suggest a replacement who doesn’t abuse women and doesn’t suck at music – any votes for Judas Priest?
That’s one more good reason to actively not watch the crap which I’ve never watched anyway. Fuck Brown and his apologists.
It brought up another good point too – if he had hit a white woman, there would have been a lot more lashing out against him. But beat up not just a woman, but a black woman? Why, not even worth a mention in the tabloids, rite?
Ah, but this is a good thing. Those assholes are paying to keep FTB afloat, and FTB is keeping those ads away from interested eyes.
So, this repugnant little spleen-weasel beats his girlfriend – and when a few mild condemnations are issued the usual MRA misogynists crawl out of the woodwork to add domestic abuse apologia to the rape apologia they are already known for? And then, a couple of years later, the Grammy organisers whine that they are the victims of Brown violently assaulting Rhianna?
What little respect I had for the modern pop music industry is rapidly waning. The message being sent here is clear; it is a high profile statement that women are considered worthless by this industry. Attacks upon their person are to be minimised or outright ignored in those cases where the blame isn’t simply shunted onto the woman herself. And everyone other than the actual target of the attack – including her attacker and unrelated organisations – are to be considerd the ‘victim’ rather than the person who actually suffered the injuries.
The worst part is that this is not an attitude limited to the out-of-touch, ivory tower popular music industry; they are simply reflecting the epidemic level of misogyny in broader society – a place where, sadly, all too people honestly believe that even such petty issues as their preference in pop music trumps the rights of women to a life free from the fear of casual violence.
Breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law
I loves me some JP. I still recall when I saw them the third time and my friends and I all looked at Rob and went, “Heyyyy, what’s with the… Oh, I get it” at the same time.
Then we rocked out some more.
Mel Gibson beat his wife for years and no one seemed to care.
carlie @ 17;
Yes, I noticed that too. Look at how society reacted when that male singer (I forget his name) interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speach for some award or other to say, essentially, that she didn’t deserve it a couple of years ago. People got angry then. Even President Obama commented upon it, and yet when Rhianna was beaten up by that thug… nothing.
So we can add casual racism to the mix, too. This just keeps getting worse.
Carlie:
That struck me, too:
I am left wondering how the reactions would be different. Somehow, I think we’d still be having this conversation, but Taylor Swift would probably have more people supporting her than Rihanna does.
Fuck, the entire music industry can jump off a fucking cliff for all I care right now. The first time I saw the pics of Rihanna’s face, I cried. What decent fucking human being doesn’t react to another’s pain?
Oh, right. We aren’t talking about decent people here.
Sunday evenings we like to roast a few babies and sodomizie a goat at the Epiphanes household. Will DVR The Walking Dead to watch later. Thx for the heads up, though.
What are the Grammy awards?
Gregory Greenwood:
Kanye West.
The thing about Kanye is he’s at once a complete douchemeister, a dumbass, a terrible artist, and again according to my pop-music-listening friends, also a brilliant, completely out-of-touch artiste who has no grasp on reality but yet can make really good music if he wants to.
By the way, Gregory, Kanye is a rapper, not a singer. In metal, this is like if you called Corpsegrinder a singer – it just doesn’t sound right.
Rip:
Not entirely. He sang on 808s and Heartbreak.
Mel Gibson is box office poison now.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart: mad, but sadistic genius @ 25;
Yup, that’s the chap. Thanks for the assist.
——————————————————————
Rip Steakface @ 26;
Ah, right. I don’t follow his career; to me, he was simply a music-associated bloke I vaguely recognised from somewhere in news coverage of some music awards, so I assumed ‘singer’. My mistake.
At the risk of demonstrating my chronic non-cool-itude, I must admit that that reference went completely over my head. I am aware that Metal music exists as a sub-genre, but I don’t listen to it. I take it that this colourfully named ‘Corpsegrinder’ person is a prominent artist in the field?
janine @ 28;
But how much of that is down to his domestic abuse, and how much relates back to his crazed religious extremism, public anti-semitism and general racism, homophobia, misogyny and pretty much all other forms of bigotry?
And lest we forget, there are also the twin ahistorical abominations of Braveheart and The Patriot to consider. I can’t watch either of those movies without shouting at the screen at the gross, wilfull butchery of historical events, and I doubt I am alone, for all their economic success as movies.
As for The Passion – I have never seen it. I refuse to watch such bigoted drivel on a point of principle.
He’s the vocalist for a band called Cannibal Corpse. They’re what’s called “brutal death metal.” Yes, as opposed to normal death metal. Don’t ask. Just know that one of the best bands in death metal is literally named Atheist. Cannibal Corpse is the best-selling band in all of death metal, followed by Morbid Angel. It helps that Jim Carrey is a fan and had one of their songs in an Ace Ventura movie.
Personally, I prefer what’s called thrash metal. These are bands such as Megadeth, Anthrax and Heathen, along with Metallica’s 80s albums. The big difference is that death metal uses growls and screams and has an extremely heavily distorted sound, while thrash metal uses either fairly normal rock singing or punk rock style shouts and barks, along with a chunky and heavy guitar sound that’s not quite as over the top as death metal in heaviness.
That’s your metal lesson for the day. Hope that wasn’t too much of a derail.
Rip Steakface @ 31;
Thanks. I always learn interesting things at Pharyngula.
Knowing that you are a fellow 40K fan, when I read ‘Corpsegrinder’ for a fleeting second I thought you had mispelled the name of one of these.
I grant that it is just possible that I spend too much time playing 40K…
As you say, we should probably stop wondering off on this little tangent and get back to the actually important issue at hand.
Sadly, Gregory Greenwood, I do not think that the demise of Mel Gibson has anything to do with him abusing his wife and more to do with his breakdowns.
As for me, never a fan. The last movie of his that I paid to see was Mad Max II; Beyond Thunderdome
Phew! Safe…no TV in our house. I don’t even know who Chris Brown is.
Somewhat off topic…but chalk up another life (Whitney Houston) destroyed by the American entertainment industry. I’m not sure if the situation is comparable in other parts of the world, but the death rate and incidence of other life tragedies among American entertainers should perhaps be looked into. It’s at least a symptom that something might be wrong.
@ 30 Gregory Greenwood:
“The Passion” is a really stupid movie, but if you’re in any way an ancient language geek (and given that you are passionate about history I guess chances are not too bad) it’s still worth watching. The spoken Latin and Aramaic sounded well done (to my ears at least) and I wish more historical movies would adopt this approach, instead of having Kevin Costner do a mock British accent (because that’s what the 12th century sounded like, amirite?). Or Mel Gibson and his Scottish… *shudders*
It’s particularly galling that he’s performing given that Whitney Houston is going to be memorialized at the same event, given that she was routinely beaten by her significant other too (and he was also pretty much given a pass for it by the music world).
janine @ 33;
That really is one heck of a condemnation of the entertainment industry and the media complex that surrounds it. Talk about a lack of priorities.
Sometimes I find the sheer, entrenched depth and breadth of misogyny (and homophobia, transphobia, racism, ablism, neurotypicalism – the whole spectrum of mindless bigotry) in society daunting. It is everywhere, and the claims of the supposed ‘victory’ of gender equality movements look more and more premature – no, not just premature, downright delusional – every day.
I know that we just have to keep at it until things improve, but I had hoped that we would be further along by now. I had hoped that I would live to see the day when bigotry of every stripe was a fringe thing, a manifestation of mental illness to be recognised for what it is and responsibly treated. Now I doubt that my children (should I ever have any) will see that day. It seems that enlightened people are still not in the overwhelming majority that they need to be to affect lasting change.
I can’t say I ever really liked him either, even before he abused that fake Scottish accent so egregiously. Even back in his early Mad Max and Lethal Weapon days, Gibson was already a mercurial type who could be a rather nasty piece of work. Those aspects of his personality expanded out of control after he ‘found teh Lard’ and essentially invented his own catholic sub-cult. One that, nigh unbelievably, actually surpasses the Holy See in hate-filled bigotry in some regards.
I don’t watch those loony industry masturbation shows anyway, they mean absoltely nothing. As for Chris Brown, he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. Why is it the crappiest performers get the spotlight?
Gregory Greenwood, it was his father, Hutton Gibson who raise Mel with those twisted variations of an already twisted religion. Daddy is also a libertarian and conspiracy crank. (The German could not have killed so many Jews, September 11 was done by remote control and and Vatican II is a Masonic plot.)
robro, I get the impression the Japanese pop music biz can be pretty hard on its artists as well. They’ve got a lot of Britney Spears/Miley Cyrus sort of acts that tend to have the shelf life of a quart of milk. At the end of the ’90s the head of a major Japanese talent agency was accused of sexual and other misconduct with the firm’s underage male clientel. although no criminal charges were ever filed.
It’s really hard to know how to deal with the crap celebs do, as a quick look demonstrates how many of them have done awful things. If you’ve got any significant amount of music in your life you’ll find a lot of the artists involved mistreated people, such as Jimmy Page having an affair with a 14 year old back in the ’70s.
I will have to wait for The Walking Dead until tomorrow, but watching Grammies never even crossed my mind anyway.
About Rhianna : I discussed her exactly once. I was told that she’s complaining too much, just look at her indecent song lyrics and videos and say that she isn’t a bitch (which presumably means she deserves to be beaten). I didn’t even want to approach the subject ever again, for fear of another terrible revelation about how many people I thought were decent are in fact assholes.
Do I even have to mention Roman Polanski? How much one can get away with if they are popular enough is astonishing.
It is not that Roman Polanski is that popular. But look at all of the people who defended that man. (Glares at Whoopi Goldberg.)
Look, Rihanna has apparently said she’s over it, so what does that tell you? That you should all get over it, stop whining about it, stop making a big deal over it?
… or does it suggest, on some level, that the misogyny is actually so bad in the music industry and among some fans that her career would have been damaged more than Brown’s, if she’d made too much of a stink about being assaulted by him? I suspect that she’d have been shunned if she’d ever complained about how quickly Brown was accepted back into the entertainment community.
I think you nailed it there, Improbable Joe. There’s a huge pressure to “get over it” and forgive and forget among those of us who aren’t famous, I can’t imagine what it would be like with your abuser have armies of rabid fanpoodles on top of the extreme institutional misogyny.
Chris who? And “Grammy” is what my kids call my MIL.
So if you’re in Ottawa and looking for something else to do while you boycott this thing, come down to the Darwin Day Pub Quiz at The Foolish Chicken.
Jodie Foster is the one who broke my heart. (defending Polanski AND Gibson!)
I don’t watch award shows. Never have, never will.
As for Chris Brown, he’s a first-rate artist, performer, and dancer, while simultaneously being a last-rate person. There’s no reason to hit other human beings and there is no excuse for battering a woman. None.
I understand. I must of suppressed the memory of that.
Let me rephrase… first rate artist, compared to the shit that passes for music in the pop scene. First rate to compared to peers like Kesha or Justin Bieber or whatever…
I think there is a list of celebrities who supported Polanski (maybe signed a support letter, I’m not sure). I couldn’t go through the whole thing, it was too disappointing.
tungl #35
Mel Brooks’ movie Robin Hood: Men In Tights was a parody of Costner’s Robin Hood movie (and IMHO a better movie). Cary Elwes, who plays Robin Hood, has a great line:
petejohn, not to nitpick but there ARE reasons to hit other human beings, one of which is what we’re talking about: if you come across Chris Brown beating up his girlfriend, you’re justified in stomping the crap out of him a bit. Violence in self-defense or defense of others is reasonable, IMO.
Ah yes, there it is: people who signed the Free Polanski petition. It’s long, but some prominent names are conveniently listed at the front.
And I just noticed Xavier Dolan on it, while closing the tab. I has a sad now.
@ ’tis Himself:
Men in Tights was one of those movies I watched almost everyday as a child, because we had it on VHS (others were Life of Brian and – for whatever reason – The Hallelujah Trail). It was a dubbed version, though, and at that time I didn’t know the original. Which means that I’ve got to watch the original version one of these days…
My tolerance for the Costner-Hood movie goes as far as Alan Rickman, who was clearly having a great time as Nottingham (although Roger Ebert wasn’t amused at all ;)
Kevin Costner only stars in movies about Kevin Costner, The Hero.
Yeah, but I still love Bull Durham.
As for me, never a fan. The last movie of his that I paid to see was Mad Max II; Beyond Thunderdome
Beyond Thunderdome was the #3 in the series. Road Warrior was #2. I still like Road Warrior, and saw it only because everything else was sold out at the cinema that day.
I’m trying to think of a Mel Gibson movie I’ve been to see at a theater after Thunderdome. Can’t think of one. But I’m not much on going to the cinema. The people at movies act like animals, and I end up with Hulk Rage even before the trailers come on the screen.
The last movie I saw in a theater was Batman Begins. It will probably be the last.
For the OP:
I don’t know this Chris Brown person, and I barely know who Rhianna is. I couldn’t name a song by either–and, please, don’t bother trying to educate me about these hacks. I don’t care. I really don’t. I saw Rhianna in passing on TVs at the Sony store (I think), and I thought, “HACK.”
I have zero respect for the American music industry, and I can’t think of any modern American album I’ve bought that was released after 2004 or so (Speakerboxx/The Love Below was the last). Everything since has been classical, jazz and Japanese.
I didn’t even know the Grammys were still around. The last time I can remember watching was 1983, and I think Survivor got the Best Rock performance that year for that odious “Eye of the Tiger”. Enough to turn me off that farce forever.
Supporting abusive pieces of shit won’t have me bothering to take a look at these wastes of time Grammys ever again.
I work in the music industry (Nashville) and I will most certainly not be watching this show. For the GRAMMY’s to act like they were a victim in all this is simply disgusting.
Time to catch up with the last few weeks of NCIS tonight.
robro, I get the impression the Japanese pop music biz can be pretty hard on its artists as well.
Hard doesn’t begin to describe it.
I think it was one of the young women on Morning Masume who got fired for smoking a cigarette as a minor. Psycho le Cemu was disbanded, instantly, when their lead vocalist was arrested for drug possession. There is little room for failure there, and the producers are not forgiving.
Worse, the artists are expected to work themselves to death. Arashi, the most popular band currently, has all this going on at any given time, as a group:
Recording their new singles, and other assorted tracks.
Recording videos
A variety show that airs once a week
A game show that airs once a week
Being spokespeople for Nintendo and other companies–so they’re shooting commercials every week.
Appearances on other variety and game shows.
Each of them hosts a weekly FM radio show.
They have group and individual interviews and photo shoots several times a week.
On top of all that, individuals will have dramas and/or films to star in and commercials to shoot. Sho Sakurai, for instance does all that, plus he hosts a weekly news broadcast. He also does sportscasting for the Olympics when those roll around.
It’s said that most of them usually get 2 hours of sleep a day–if they’re lucky.
They’ve got a lot of Britney Spears/Miley Cyrus sort of acts that tend to have the shelf life of a quart of milk.
No different from America, really. There have always been one-hit wonders here, and bands that last at most a few years.
At the end of the ’90s the head of a major Japanese talent agency was accused of sexual and other misconduct with the firm’s underage male clientel. although no criminal charges were ever filed.
That would be Johnny Kitagawa. He’s a creep, and he produces only boy bands, like the above-mentioned Arashi.
Oh… and Netflix has the first six seasons of Supernatural up for streaming, so I’ll be doing that for most of the evening.
I don’t see how he could perform tonight is there’s a warrant out for his arrest.
I also don’t see the point of further harassment of someone who is undergoing treatment. He’s obviously screwed that up now, but there was no reason to make it worse by demanding more punishment than counseling and probation.
Too much isolation and lack of attempts to counsel is what gives us jails full of minor offenses and people unable to pay bail while we let people like Timothy McVeigh and Seung-Hui Cho become tickign time-bombs. Most just do damage like this fellow, without ever getting any help.
Milli Vanilli. ‘Nuff said.
What real “punishment” is there in counselling or probation, especially for a rich celebrity? Yes, he should get help and good for him if he takes advantage of it… but how does that make what he did go away, how does that make it up to Rihanna, how does that show that he’s actually done anything that means that he understands and appreciates the harm that he caused?
Aquaria, if anything I’ve sometimes supsected the American pop music world in the Britney Spears era stole ideas of how to develop amd promote pop stars from the Japanese. They’ve always had a level of prefabness going, back to the Monkees and earlier, but it seems to have gotten worse in recent years.
I’ve always wondered why we haven’t seen a Japanese equivalent of Celine Dion or Shakira. Not that they haven’t tried. Seiko Matsuda tried twice, with not much luck. Hikaru Utada has tried, but again hasn’t really taken off.
Oh, crissakentavr, are you ever on the right side of any argument?
Is not being asked to perform at the Grammys a punishment? Man, I’ve been getting punished every year and not realizing it.
I have always felt the same about Michael Jackson. He only slept with 10 year old boys because he was just a 10 year old in an adult body. Yeah right. So wer 10,000 priests.
That won’t be a problem in this case. I’m not sure if you heard, but he’s going to perform at the motherfucking Grammy awards tonight, presuming you think anything less than performing at the motherfucking Grammy awards constitutes isolation.
If you link through the article, you reach this page, where the piece of shit who produces the Grammys lets us know who this whole fiasco has been hardest on:
You stay strong, Grammys. You’ll get through this.
Well, Tina Turner would seem to be a counterexample, but perhaps that’s because Ike was never much of a success without her.
I listen to far much top 40 these days, thanks to my 9-year-old son, but I will say this: Adele is a real talent.
Regardless, I had no plans to watch the Grammys, and now I have more reason not to.
Here’s the apology Chris Brown deserved: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOjUKwoHUyw
I have no idea who this Andy Levy person is, but he’s nailed the entire situation (in under 140 characters!):
Glad to see you mention The Walking Dead. All I could think during the season two premiere, when they came upon a church full of zombies, was “What an apt metaphor.”
Carlie @ 17
That’s an absurd exaggeration. The only reason I knew about the whole scandal was by reading the covers of tabloids while waiting in a supermarket check-out line. You don’t need to make the story seem bad by lying about it, there’s enough evil in the reality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Brown_%28American_entertainer%29#Domestic_violence_case
He’s an abuser with anger issues. another one of a too-long parade of them.
Ugh.
I knew as far back as 1996 or so that Gibson was into far-right Catholicism. I mentioned it in passing to someone I knew, and she replied, “Oh, that’s a shame. But I like his movies anyway.”
That person was a feminist who then worked at Planned Parenthood, by the way. I’ve lost touch with her, but I wonder if, by now, she’s lost her fondness for his acting, especially since she’s a woman of color.
Bubba707: The music industry is not about talent. It’s about marketing people who fit into a certain narrow ideal of attractiveness as “stars,” whose images that will entice certain demographics to buy their music.
Aquaria:
People, at least in the U.S., don’t seem to understand that public space isn’t their living room, and that buying a ticket to or spending money at a venue does not give them unlimited “rights” to behave however they like.
Between that, uncomfortable seats, high prices, and a lot of really crappy movies, I don’t see the point in going to the movies anymore, either.
About what would happen if he had chosen to beat up Taylor Swift….have you seen the crap his fans dish out about Rihanna? She didn’t just ask for it, she provoked it, it’s all her fault, poor Chris, he was just defending himself, those Barbadian bitchez are crazy…..They speak as if their lies are actual facts: she tried to gouge his eyes so what else was he supposed to do? And of course, the ever-popular ‘be it on your heads, haters’ if we don’t hold his hand and say soothing things in his ears while he continues to make fun of rape victims and gay people. Like Schwyzer, he hasn’t shown anything resembling remorse. You get the feeling he was disappointed and very angry when nobody sympathized with him, the way he bruised his knuckles on a much smaller woman’s face.
Taylor Swift gets marketed as a good Suzy Creamcheese type of girl. Rihanna is marketed as sexy and worldly. The person I wonder about is a personality who more resembles Rihanna. I just can’t think of anybody right now. Madonna? Gaga? Boy, I don’t know what the kids are listening to these days.
@76
Bizarre how they want Chris Brown to beat them up? Do they think it’s a joke?
And apparently they don’t even know who Paul McCartney is.
Who’s Paul McCartrey?
Trending topic on Twitter: “RIP Chris Brown”, apparently it stands for “really inspiring people”.. really Twitter? *facepalm*