The Parents Television Council are up in arms. Arms, I say! The collective of bored soccer moms have turned their sights on the new video for Rihanna’s single Man Down. They call it “an inexcusable, shock-only, shoot-and-kill theme song.” They want it off their the BET and if someone could program their VCR to stop flashing 12:00, that’d be great too.
The video shows Rihanna shooting a guy who raped her. It opens up with the guy getting shot and a view of the body in the street with a pool of blood near his head. The PTC says this “gives retaliation in the form of premeditated murder the imprimatur of acceptability.” Wait, someone actually uses the word “imprimatur?”
The PTC, of course, fails to understand this is merely a visual representation of her art (music) through imagery. Or something like that. There’s no secret message if you play it backwards that says you should go out and shoot your attacker. It’s like if the Parents Television Council went after True Blood. It’s not like the show is condoning killing vampires because of a few scenes here and there. It’s just fantasy. I mean, some of my best friends are vampires.
