Hi everyone! It has been QUITE a while since I blogged, and I miss it! I am currently studying in Australia until November, so I have been busy as ever and loving it! Considering the recent death of Ariel Castro, I've been thinking a lot about the cases that have been in the news lately, and most importantly the reactions from people around the country. I think it's time I devote a post to some really big cases in the media and how the public views them. I'm going to break this post up into a few different ones because there are a lot of issues I want to cover. So at the end, you'll see a "to be continued..." for that reason!
So, the first few recent cases that come to mind are: Jerry Sandusky, Chris Brown, Jodi Arias, Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, and the most recent and appalling Ariel Castro. All of these cases are very different, but each have powerful and horrifying stories. In each case, we see the way the public responds to both the victims and perpetrators through social media. I must admit I have a love/hate relationship with social media, and at times I wish we could just turn it all off for a while. After seeing what some people say in response to these sensitive cases, I feel the most hate for social media. But it is not the media's fault; we are growing into a society where voicing our opinions on the internet and social networking sites is second-nature (almost first) and this can be both beneficial and hindering depending on the matter.
The problems with social media pertaining to big cases including celebrities or teens that are very "relatable" is that they can cause ignorant, defensive, or insensitive comments in response. This can be due to the fact that people have no one censoring their comments, and feel there is no consequence for their words.In the case of Chris Brown abusing Rihanna, there were many comments about both how Rihanna was to blame. The reactions to this case, and every case, will depend on the audience. The younger audience seemed to either make jokes, or defend Chris Brown. There were a few fans of Chris Brown's that had said (paraphrasing) 'I would let him hit me any day because he is so hot.' The older audience seemed to be concerned with Rihanna's fans; since Rihanna has gotten back together with Chris Brown since the incident, mothers were concerned with how Rihanna's choices affected their own teens, and that since Rihanna is a celebrity, she should be more conscious of how her decisions (to go back to him) affected her younger fans who looked up to her. I can see where the parents were coming from because teens and adolescents do look up to celebrities and usually reflect and model after the behaviors they see. However, the problem with this attitude is victim-blaming.
People who are not well-educated in dating abuse, or who have not experienced it themselves, may have a harder time understanding why victims go back to their abusers. I can completely understand why it would be frustrating for someone to see a victim go back to someone who is hurting them, and even people who are educated or who have been through it themselves still get frustrated with it. However, we live in a harshly victim-blaming society, and it is our job to counteract it. Instead of asking why Rihanna is going back to Chris Brown, we should be asking why Chris Brown is hurting someone who he is supposed to care about. We focus so much negative attention on the victim that we lose focus on the real problems. I'm not saying it is our job to hate Chris Brown or focus all of our negative attention on him, but we need to refocus our attention on the issue of violence against women and why it persists. One of those reasons is victim-blaming.
Another case that involved victim-blaming was the recent Ohio case with the two boys from Steubenville who digitally raped a 16-year-old girl. Again, the responses to this case varied in different age groups. Among some very encouraging and supportive responses, there were some sadly ignorant ones. There were a few aspects of this particular case I want to discuss: the victim was 16 and intoxicated at the time of the assault, and the perpetrators were "promising athletes". Most of the negative or victim-blaming comments I saw were about how the victim was drinking when the assault occurred. A large portion of sexual assaults involve alcohol, but this is not to say that alcohol causes any assault. Alcohol creates vulnerability for the victim, and/or control for the assailant. As we should all drink responsibly, we are human and make mistakes like occasionally drinking a bit too much than we can handle, or drinking underage. So we can hold the young girl accountable for drinking underage, but we cannot hold her accountable for being assaulted while under the influence. Drinking is not the issue here; the assault (including taking photos of it) is the problem. We have to stop blaming the victim for the assault, plain and simply; the only reason rape or sexual assault occurs is because the rapist chose to make it happen. The second issue I had with this case was the focus on the perpetrators as "promising athletes"; the wording alone in the various article headings created an illusion of sympathy for the perpetrators instead of the victim. The issue in big cases in the media including celebrities is that it provides the public with a sense of legitimacy or respect which negates the crime. It also shifts the focus in the courts and in the media from sympathy for the victim to making the boys out to be victims of their own crime.
To be continued...
