Writing about writing about #BBHMM
Rihanna’s video for “Bitch Better Have My Money” has been making the rounds for a few days now, accompanied by a whole slew of articles regarding the clip’s purported feminism/misogyny (of course talked about in the typical either/or manner of absolutes). In the video, thought up and directed by Rihanna and Megaforce, Rihanna is shown getting back at an accountant who messed up her finances by kidnapping his girlfriend before realizing he doesn’t really give all at much of a shit and doing him in as well. The seven-minute film ends with Rihanna sitting in a trunk full of money, covered in his blood.
A lot of the discourses surrounding the video have been about Rihanna’s feminism, or lack thereof, an issue which takes on a more complex nature when considering Rihanna as a successful black female artist. I’ve decided to write this article to consider a number of points which have interested me while reading other opinions which have been put forward by both black and white women.
One major point that has (re)surfaced regards the feminism which informs white women who decry the portrayals of empowered (black) femininity in the video. In her article for the New Statesman Helen Lewis argues against the video’s sexualized violence against a woman and its use of the established narrative trope in which the woman has to pay for the man’s wrongdoing. To be sure, Lewis is entitled to her opinion and her reading is doubtless informed by a number of factors including, as she herself notes, her status as a white woman. And yeah, her use of a quotation from an outdated second wavey feminist writer is kind of embarrassing.
On the other hand, keeping an eye on Twitter, there seems to be a widespread consensus that BBHMM is either (or both) above and beyond critique because of its sheer awesomeness, or unworthy of critique because it’s only a music video and who cares anyway. These are both arguments that don’t really stand in the world of media studies, where nothing is too valuable or worthless to be analyzed, and everything is culturally significant because of its relation to the social context in which it was produced.
But this does bring up the important issue of who is doing the analyzing and the notion of taking a step back. As a researcher I’m interested in representations of women in popular media. I aim to keep it as inclusive as possible, considering the portrayals we get of white women, queer women, women of color, women of different classes and so on.
Having carried out extensive research on the historical discourses surrounding portrayals of black women, I feel equipped to analyze these representations in correspondence to the culture which produced them (which in my case is usually Western, specifically North American). I’ve read scholarly pieces about these topics written by both male and female academics who are predominantly people of color, but also include white scholars doing the same thing that I do. Now the privilege granted me as a researcher in an academic institution already has implications for where my research takes me but like I said, I do my best, and any of my output is completely open for critique by anyone who cares to read it (which is probably going to be yet more privileged academics).
What I don’t feel equipped to do is provide a feminist critique of black women’s self-representation. I’ve sat in seminar rooms in my university, in what is possibly the whitest county in Britain, with white academics pondering the merits of Beyoncé’s feminism and came out feeling very much the same way. As I mentioned, I feel pretty OK discussing how portrayals of women tie to wider cultural discourses of women’s empowerment. I can discuss, for example, how portrayals of evil women in superhero films relate to established beliefs about women’s hysteria and inherent immorality. What I can’t do is tell people (women) not to feel empowered by them. And the same goes for Rihanna and Beyoncé and Nikki, particularly because they arguably have a hand in how they present themselves, as opposed to the media representations I look at in my research, which have all been predominantly constructed by white men.
So yes, I have an opinion about BBHM, but I also have a lot of questions. Sure I, like others, would’ve liked to have seen the girlfriend and Rihanna team up against the accountant. I would have liked to have seen less of a reliance on the women in refrigerators trope which at this point is just trite and boring. But evidently these things weren’t on Rihanna’s agenda, nor should they be, because Rihanna owes me nothing. What she was clearly interested in was reappropriating the line “Bitch Better Have My Money.” And though she didn’t write the song, we can relate it to her own experiences about being financially exploited and nearly going bankrupt.
So yeah, I am interested in the way in which it incorporates certain tropes, I’m interested in the kind of empowered black femininity she’s putting forward and most of all, I’m interested in where Rihanna positions herself within the postfeminist mode of economic empowerment usually reserved for white, middle-class women. But then again, while I can explore these questions, I’m certainly in no position to be telling people not to feel empowered by it.
So far, I’ve read Lewis’ article, an article by June Eric-Udorie, a teen writer, also for the New Statesman, and a piece from Tyler Rose Mann on Killing the Breeze, not to mention Refinery29's on-the-nose headline of “Rihanna’s ‘BBHMM’ Video Is Not Suitable For Work, Or Feminists.” These articles all argue that the gender representation in the video is what can broadly be described as problematic. I’ve seen far more articles lauding the video and defending it against the ominous White Feminists. Notably most of them in some way refer to Tarantino movies, like, if Quentin Tarantino had made this video nobody would care about the violence and would see it as a work of artistic genius. This raises questions about the seemingly innate connection between violence and masculinity, as well as links we can draw between masculine texts and quality, not to mention the race and class dimensions which come to light in these discussions. I also find it interesting that these articles are referring to an idea of feminism, and where this idea comes from.
Overall, I think the question we should be asking is what are people writing about when they write about a topic such as whether or not a thing is feminist? And what relation do we have to this as individuals and as feminists? And what is at stake here?
So for the record, I have an opinion about BBHMM, which is it’s alright! I also despise Tarantino movies. Mads Mikkelssen I can take or leave. I like spaghetti. These are all opinions. Some of these opinions are of more consequence than others.
Pro-BBHMM articles you should probably read:
