Booty Calls, Rage, and Racialized/sexualized Subjects: Tmz's Coverage of Rihanna and Chris Brown Page: 65
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delineation between a perpetrator and a victim, and suggesting instead that the two attacked each
other and would again if given the chance.
There are even more blatant instances of essentially attributing the violent episode to
various inevitable variables that are rooted in destructive cultural myths. Principally, TMZ has
published articles indicating that deviant sexual practices may have incited Brown and Rihanna
to violence. The prevailing theory on TMZ to explain why Rihanna and Brown fought is the
"text message" theory. In this explanation, Rihanna intercepted a cell phone text message from
Brown's manager Tina Davis who reportedly had a sexual relationship with him when he was
underage.157 In similar articles that espouse the same theory, Rihanna is indicted for having a
similarly "adulterous" relationship with another rap artist, fueling a climate of mutual suspicion
and distrust.158 There is a relative lack of empathy for Brown if it is true that a woman twice his
age victimized him (statutory rape).159 Here also is the assumption that another black woman
would do such a thing to him.160 Finally, the allegations that Rihanna and Brown were unfaithful
naturalize black sexual deviance as an obvious cause of violence in black relationships. This
tactic strips the relationship of context or nuance, placing it on an inevitable trajectory of
violence. The question becomes not if but when. TMZ's insistence on the black community as
promiscuous, as contributing not only to violence in their own relationships but also callously
provoking it in others, removes notions of choice and replaces them with predetermined
157 Admittedly, this theory is reflected in the affidavit, but there are no details of the text message itself or
whom it was from. TMZ Staff, "Mysterious Woman in Brown/Rihanna Case Revealed," TMZ (blog) March 10,
2009, http://www.tmz.com/2009/03/10/chris-brown-rihanna-mystery-woman-text-message/.
158 TMZ Staff, "Text Message Ignites Rihanna/Brown Violence," TMZ (blog) February 11, 2009,
http://www.tmz.com/2009/02/11/text-message-ignites-rihanna-brown-violence/.
159 Here we have the image of the "thug" young black man, using many women and expressing no
emotional attachment in sexual situations. The insistence that statutory rape of a young black man by a woman in a
position of power is acceptable and carries no emotional baggage for the man has a fixed meaning in discourse about
black subjects and solidifies notions of black sexual deviance. See, Jackson, Scripting, 112.
160 Again, evokes the black Jezebel, see Meyers, "Gender, Race, Class," and Jewell, Mammy to Miss
America.65
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Sabino, Lauren. Booty Calls, Rage, and Racialized/sexualized Subjects: Tmz's Coverage of Rihanna and Chris Brown, thesis, August 2011; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc177250/m1/70/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .