22 February 09

Domestic Abuse and the Right to Own Your Image

If you have been lucky enough to come across the image of Rhianna’s beaten face, then consider yourself lucky. I’d heard that TMZ had come across a leaked image of the woman who was beaten by her boyfriend and I decided to actively avoid that image. I didn’t need to see it. I’ve seen enough women who were abused by someone they loved. I know what the police photos look like, I have several 20+ year old photos etched into my memory. Every cracked lip, swollen eye, bruised cheek, shattered jaw. I know what that looks like.

And you know what, so do you. Even if you didn’t have the same introduction I had to images of domestic violence. You know what people look like after they’ve been in a physical fight. It doesn’t make it any more or less real to know exactly how beat up she was.

So I (and I know I’m not the only one) was actively avoiding the image when I went to the Sun-Times website to follow a link to a completely different story. I clicke to their front page and saw, in their masthead, the image. It was just a thumbnail. But I didn’t need to even read the caption to know what it was. To know who it was. And I’m appalled by every news and “news” publication, website, program that has run the image. An image that was not supposed to be public. An image of a woman whose name was not supposed to be released to the public. An image that was illegally released by someone inside the police department for TMZ and others like them to profit off of.

And while I won’t say that reprinting this image is equal to hitting her, I do think that profiting off of this image is awful, unappealing, and just plain tacky. Rhianna lost control over her physical self during an incident that we can’t or don’t understand. Rhianna will likely lose sponsorship deals because her image now doesn’t match up to what it did before this incident. Rhianna should not have had to lose yet more control over herself because of an enterprising person who likely sold the images to TMZ. And if TMZ did buy these illegally attained images, I think they should be sued.

Because the only person who has the right to show those images is the woman who is in them. And that right has been taken from her. Yes, it is good that people now have visual evidence that domestic violence strikes at all income levels (OJ Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson, anyone remember that?). Yes it is important for people to believe that a “nice guy” like Chris could have done something so horrible. But, this image, the loss of control over the rights to this image, will not gain either of those things. It’s sad, but true. People will continue to believe that she must have done something to deserve it, or that maybe it was a mutual fight and we just need to see what he looked like, or that the images were mocked up or Photoshopped to make them look worse to gain strength for the smear campaign aganist Chris. No matter what visual evidence exists, those who don’t want to believe will find a reason not to believe.

Sadly, I didn’t need to see it to believe it. I know what it looks like. And now, thanks to the Chicago Sun-Times, I know exactly what it looks like.

edit Oops. I had Nicole Kidman instead of Nicole Simpson in this post. That’s what I get for ranting at 2am.

Comments

  1. I didn’t know about OJ and Nicole Kidman… :)

    No, but seriously, read your opinion, and pretty much agree. Fortunately for Rihanna (and unlike most women, men, children, and animals who suffer abuse), she has the financial means and public leverage to eke out of the aftermath whatever public image she desires. The big problem is, she seems to be (well at least the media makes her sound like she seems to be) considering going back to Chris Brown. We’ve seen a lot of public self-destruction by famous young people, but this is a particularly ghastly form of it. And people seem to love to buy rags and read all about it. You can’t change that.

    — Caroline on Feb 22, 08:56 am

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