Domestic violence in entertainment--constructive or destructive?

There's been a lot of blogging lately about Eminem and Rhianna's song, "Love the way you lie." Some people think it's a valuable treatise on how domestic violence actually goes down. Others believe it's presenting domestic violence as acceptable at best, glorifying it at worst. The song is hardly alone. Allison Iraheta has one out right now with a similar theme, and it's been done before.

Flip flopping joy posted about the song a couple of weeks ago.  This post is kind of rambling, but it did make an excellent point that needed to be brought to my attention. Let me distill it for you:

We have a narrative in our culture that any woman who stays with a man who abuses her, deserves whatever she gets. If she wants to stop the abuse, she needs to Leave. Him. Period. What could be more logical than that?

What I didn't recognize is the privilege inherent in this narrative. I was raised with the concept that you don't accept physical abuse from a mate. My father tried to kill my mother. She walked out on him that day. Finito. Her philosophy is to not stick around where she's not treated with respect and she ingrained that in her kids. She also had something to leave to--loving parents that took her back in and helped provide and care for her and her daughter.

But not everyone grew up with my mom. Some people's mom's were getting beaten, molested, or screamed at every night. They see their friends and family living with abuse and it is normal. And some 30-second PSA isn't going to change that perception. There are not enough resources for women who grow up in violent conditions to (a) understand that abuse is not an inherent component of relationships and (b) give them the means to support themselves and their children if they do manage to get away from the abuser.

So in a way, the Eminen/Rhianna colaberation is a means to draw attention to domestic violence as it exists in reality, rather than in the imaginations of those of us privileged enough not to have experienced it. And since the song is out there, I hope it does that job adequately.

But I do not think the song was a good idea. First off, I know Rhianna and Eminem have both experienced abuse in their lives, and that creating art about it can be a way of dealing with their emotions. But this is not a journal. It is not a self-reflective piece that is shared with the family or a therapy group--this has been shared with the world.

It's been released to a world full of people who don't know or particularly care about the internal struggles the singers may be dealing with. It's a world full of people who find the song catchy, romantic, and even worthy of imitation. For all the people who live with violence, who see it everywhere and experience it as normal--especially teenage girls--how does this song help them? It seems like just one more piece of evidence that violence is normal and acceptable.

Presenting the woman as remaining with the abuser may be realistic, but it reinforces the notion that there is no other choice. If it's unrealistic to present women as being capable of escaping domestic violence, then let's explore that. Who better than an artist to imagine some creative alternatives?

I don't dispute the artists' right to make this song, nor anyone's right to listen to it. But is it beneficial? I don't think so. I think the world would have been better off without it.