Thursday, September 3, 2009

How Bout a Round of Applause?


Chris Brown appeared on Larry King last night in his first televised interview since the Feb. 8 incident where he assaulted girlfriend Rihanna and Breezy came across as, at least, a bit insincere, desperate to salvage his public image, and still unfortunately unaware of the greater implications of his actions or his motivations behind them.

First things first, Chris, I wouldn't exactly call this a sky blue, bow-tie occassion. Yes I understand you're sitting next to your mom and trying to stress your youth through this interview ("I'm only 20...I'm not a man fully yet") and trying to paint this all as some foolish "mistake". But that attitude already pisses me off. So why exacerbate with a questionably juvenile choice of apparel? Moving on to more substance...

CB appeared with his mother, Joyce Hawkins, a survivor of domestic abuse, and his lawyer, Mark Geragos, who did a little too much of the talking, naturally. Larry started the line of questioning by asking if whether or not the sentencing of five years probation and spend upwards of 1,400 hours doing community service was fair. Chris, eager to seem agreeable, said that it was the law and if the law saw fit then that would be a just punishment. Fair enough. Whatever.

Things got frustrating for me as a viewer when larry tried to drive the line of questioning away from the now and back to the then to try and understand and provide viewers and fans with a greater explanation for all of this than "Like...Wow" or "I made a mistake." Chris seemed persistent on keeping any and all information about the night itself private claiming not wanting to violate his or Rihanna's privacy.

I completely understand the mentality of not wanting to force a victim to relive the details of a horrific occurence, especially through the words of her assailant. But what Brown doesn't seem to understand is that he is not coming across as convincing in having come to terms wit what he did and why he did it. Not once during the interview did he verbalize aloud what he was guilty of in terms legal or otherwise. It seems obvious that he's in a rush to save his image and get back closer to where he was, rather than truly come to some sort of reconciliation and understanding to himself or his fanbase of the violent acts he committed.

Everybody saw those pictures. It is insulting and offensive to refer to whatever transpired that made those pictures a reality as a "mistake." It trivializes the incident and its greater implications. And unprofessional public announcements like this one, "I ain't a monster," challenging his fans and deeming others as haters who've always been haters, further demonstrates how he's trivialized the incident to himself and made it seem as though its severity is a construction of the media.

I work with a woman who is convinced that Breezy will be forgiven. "They forgave R. Kelly. They're forgiving Whitney right now." Though I'm not as sure (and those seem slightly irrelevant examples to cite...nobody forgave Bobby or Ike). Somebody's going to forgive him and I think that he is deserving of that forgiveness, that's on the terms that, once he can prove to the public that he does understand what he did and why he did it. I feel as though that's the only way to prevent violence like this is to understand its cause and alternatives for it.

Chris, not to belabor the point, really doesn't seem to get it. And as a side note, quit likening yourself to MJ. You may be a helluva dancer but Michael was nver as dependent on bullshit auto-tune and generic catchy hooks as you are. And just one last thing, your new single fucking blows, for reasons both listed in this post, and objectively.

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