{"id":26454,"date":"2010-08-07T10:22:58","date_gmt":"2010-08-07T15:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=26454"},"modified":"2013-12-05T04:13:29","modified_gmt":"2013-12-05T09:13:29","slug":"true-love-is-violent-rihanna-and-eminem-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2010\/08\/07\/true-love-is-violent-rihanna-and-eminem-style\/","title":{"rendered":"True Love is Violent, Rihanna and Eminem Style"},"content":{"rendered":"

Given the intense publicity given to Chris Brown’s violent beating of singer, Rihanna, and the subsequent release of her domestic violence-themed single, Russian Roulette<\/a>, it’s hard to interpret her partnership with Eminem on the new song, Love the Way You Lie, as anything but symbolic.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it’s also hard to interpret this video as anything other than the message that true love is violent<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Eminem sings about how he hates the woman he loves, and alternates between expressing shame for his violence and describing how badly he wants to hurt her.\u00a0 Simultaneously, Rihanna’s beautiful vocals tug at the heart strings, representing the love side of the coin against Eminem’s angry voice.\u00a0 Add to this the acting by Lost’s Dominic Monaghan and super-sex-symbol Megan Fox, who alternate between beating each other and appearing to be deeply, profoundly in love.\u00a0 Eminem closes by threatening to kill her if she ever tries to leave him and, in the end, they lie in each others arms.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a beautiful song.\u00a0 Rihanna’s vocals are gorgeous; it’s was hard to not feel heartfelt while listening to them.\u00a0 And that’s the problem.\u00a0 It’s a powerful form of socialization.\u00a0 That we might internalize the message that passionate love and incontrollable rage go hand-in-hand is really very scary. It suggests not only that you should tolerate interpersonal violence but that, if there is no violence in your relationship, perhaps you don’t really love one another.\u00a0 Better go out and find someone who will beat you.<\/p>\n

I’ve never been in an abusive relationship of that sort but as a young adult I thought I knew what love felt like.\u00a0 To me, it felt like fear.\u00a0 I knew that I was in love when I became deeply frightened that someone would leave me.\u00a0 It took me until around my 30th birthday to realize that a strong, loving relationship should make me feel secure<\/em>, not terrified.\u00a0 These messages are insidious and ubiquitous and I do believe they shape real relationships.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Given the intense publicity given to Chris Brown’s violent beating of singer, Rihanna, and the subsequent release of her domestic violence-themed single, Russian Roulette, it’s hard to interpret her partnership with Eminem on the new song, Love the Way You Lie, as anything but symbolic.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it’s also hard to interpret this video as anything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[329,55,2090,120,133],"class_list":["post-26454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-emotion","tag-gender","tag-gender-violence","tag-sex","tag-violence"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26454"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59877,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26454\/revisions\/59877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}