Rihanna, Miley Cyrus and Dylann Roof

Twas the video that launched a thousand thinkpieces…Yes, Rihanna’s video to ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’ has caused controversy due to its graphic depiction of Rihanna and two other women kidnapping the wife of a wealthy and corrupt accountant. They proceed to torture her, drug her and drown her, all in an act of revenge against a man who was – apparently – stealing Rihanna’s money.

The song, the second single from the singer’s eighth album, is based on Rihanna’s grievance against an accountant, Peter Gounis, against whom she filed a lawsuit in 2012, claiming he gave her “unsound” financial advice that led to a loss of $9m in 2009 alone. She won a multimillion settlement – but apparently felt her point needed to really be brought home via what is a luridly explicit video.

It’s a pulpy, grindhouse style piece of cinematic action, with ample blood and gore, and deliberate references to female-led B-movies, from Thelma and Louise to Carrie, Boogie Nights, Weekend At Bernie’s and Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

The video has drawn widespread ire, because of its echoing of misogynistic exploitation. In the video, the accountant’s wife, played by Rachel Roberts, is trapped naked in a trunk (or car boot if you’re living on this side of the Atlantic!), bound, hung from the ceiling, drugged, sexually molested, and held underwater. On the other hand, the perpetrator, Rihanna, is presented as the ultimate empowered badass; all steely-eyed determination, sexual power and unapologetic vengeance-seeking.

Questions have been raised as to whether the video is misogynistic – and whether we would even hesitate to label it as such were Rihanna’s character a man. The video thus has become part of our favourite cultural game of the moment: Is It Feminist?

I’m not discrediting the 'Is It Feminist?' game. I’m an enthusiastic player myself, and will continue to be so. But I feel that sometimes, in rushing to declare something Feminist Or Not, we miss a fairly obvious point, a philosophy that Rihanna has always embodied: some people don’t want everything they do to be pure feminism. Sometimes they want to be human, and flawed, and complicated. Sometimes they want to be provocative. Sometimes they want to stir up controversy. And in that game, Rihanna will win every time. Sure look at me. I’m writing the bloody thinkpiece, amn’t I? Game, set, match, Rihanna.

So let’s put aside the feminism question. Yes, the video echoes a lot of misogynistic exploitation tropes. Yes, the man in the video gets to keep his clothes on, while the women are shown in various states of undress. Yes, the song itself uses a misogynistic word. And let’s face it; while every action doesn’t have to be feminist, and it’s certainly not the only mark of merit in a piece of art – after centuries of misogyny and the objectification of violence, being feminist is certainly a less hackneyed approach.

However. The video is also deeply interesting, in both its representation of White women and women of colour, and the interplay between the two; and it’s interesting also in the reactions that it has provoked.

In the debates swirling around the ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’, some women who have vocally disliked the video have been labelled as “white feminists” – a term that doesn’t denote the race of the feminist, but rather is a form of feminism that doesn’t appreciate or acknowledge the complexities of race or intersectionality.

This criticism is problematic in some regards, as it disallows women from expressing discomfort about a video that explicitly shows violence and sexualised violence against women. When one in four women will be sexually assaulted within their lifetimes, and are constantly confronted by images of tortured and abused women created by a patriarchal mass media, it seems overly simplistic and lacking in empathy to declare that their discomfort is purely due to a lack of cultural and racial awareness. Sometimes women just don’t want to see another woman get tortured, and that should be respected.

However, the representations of race in the video are fascinating, and there is an important point to be made regarding real-life violence against women of colour, and society’s deliberate decision to ignore it, in a way they don’t choose to ignore a pop culture representation of violence against a White woman.

While White women (as most of the commentators regarding the video are, myself included) are able to not only choose whether to acknowledge this fictional representation of violence against a White women, but also to benefit from it by commenting on it, women of colour are not able to avoid the real violence inflicted against many of them and their peers – and are too aware that it will largely remain ignored by mainstream culture.

Or to put it another way, the victimisation of Black women in society doesn’t make headlines, but victimisation of White woman in a music video does, and that in and of itself is a sad indictment of society.

The three ways Rihanna chooses to represent herself in the ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’ video – ignored, sexualised and vengeful – each address the common stereotypes of Black women, that remain the most visible representation of women of colour in pop culture. These stereotypes are that of the 'mammy', whose existence revolves around serving white people; the sexually promiscuous 'Jezebel'; and the 'angry black woman' – all tropes that have been used to defend slavery in the past, and continue to be used to dehumanise and objectify women of colour, in order to support cultural and political racism.

This issue of visibility and race relations is addressed in the very first interaction between Rihanna and the accountant’s wife. Dressed in expensive white clothes, with long blonde hair and holding a status symbol pet, the privileged, wealthy Whiteness of the woman is deliberately highlighted.

Upon entering the elevator however, the woman doesn’t even acknowledge the presence of Rihanna, as if she were a cleaner, a servant, part of the background there to serve, not be equal – a “mammy.” This non-interaction serves several purposes: on a historical level, it points to the cultural and societal erasure of women of colour, and the colonist's privilege that has supported this erasure. In terms of modern pop culture, it also highlights how often wealthy White women, often clad in white and with slim bodies that are socially deemed as desirable and respectable, are put in the forefront of music videos, while ignoring the women of colour in the background.

The most obvious and recent example is Miley Cyrus: her performances have often put her own slim body – often clad in white – front and centre, while relegating curvier Black women to the role of her ignored and unacknowledged back-up dancers. These women become “seen” only in order to fetishize and objectify bodies of colour – think Miley Cyrus spanking the curvy buttocks of her back-up dancers – women who were chosen specifically because of their body type, and the visual contrast they would provide when placed beside (or rather, behind) Cyrus. Art is here imitating life, as Black women remain socially and culturally less visible, and deliberately ignored, both by and compared to White women.

Even the difference in how nudity and female bodies are seen and evaluated according to “respectability” is highlighted. The White woman is seen wandering around her decadent house in a bra, dressed in pure white (virginal reference ahoy), nipples peeking through expensive silk and lace, as she sips tea from a china cup. Rihanna’s body, in contrast, is seen clad in provocative, deliberately trashy thigh-high boots, corsets, thong swimsuits and transparent latex.

The contrast highlights how White woman’s sexuality is seen as respectable, while the sexuality of women of colour is perceived as more deviant, raw, primal – the ”Jezebel.” The aesthetics of privilege and the historical perception of bodies of colour being more sexualised than their White peers is emphasized – all the while, the privilege enjoyed by the White accountant’s wife is coming at the literal, and cultural, expense of Rihanna, a woman of colour.

On this theme, the White woman who stands by a husband who exploits Black women also evokes the historical memory of slave owners wives, as well as White (and politically white) women who ignore the systematic exploitation of women of colour.

Rihanna’s video also makes explicit the historical societal fear of people of colour turning violent against White people; a (hugely ironic) fear that has historically been used to justify various forms of racism, abuse and control. Just last month, the horrific events in Charleston saw White mass murderer Dylann Roof cite Black-on-White murder as a reason for his violence, telling his victims “You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go.”

This hugely ironic fear of Black autonomy and empowerment, exaggerated into the racist imaginary of violence against White people, has a long historical presence in the racist imaginary, and is still evident in the racist actions of both specific individuals like Dylann Roof, and societal structures such as law enforcement, which disproportionately targets people of colour, and uses excessive force against them as compared to White people.

Think back to the descriptions of Mike Brown as being “giant” and “threatening”; the Texas police officer who felt justified in throwing an unarmed fourteen year old girl to the ground; or the media-supported images of the “criminal black man” – a phenomenon writer Katherine Russell-Brown coined to describe the stereotyping of minorities as criminals, as a way to justify racism.

These racist stereotypes morph into the trope of the “angry Black woman” when levelled against women; a way of fact disallowing the empowerment of Black women, as well as their opinions and autonomy, by deliberately reading their emotion or expression as inherently more aggressive or threatening that the expression of White women.

That a music video showing an exploited woman of colour inflicting violence against a White women has invoked so much controversy while images of abused Black woman saturate society and mass media alike, highlights how quick we are to judge anger and violence inflicted by women of colour as problematic, while we’re all too comfortable seeing Black women as victims, whether in pop culture or real life.

With all these issues swirling together in Rihanna’s video, the question becomes not whether or not the video is feminist, but whether we’re choosing to analyse its feminism at the expense of its complex racial representations, simply because it’s more comfortable.

Being explicitly feminist is important, but too often it allows audiences to remain in a certain comfort zone, preventing any further discussion. Rihanna’s ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’ video isn’t comfortable. It isn’t safe. It may or may not be feminist. But it’s definitely thought-provoking.

And as ever, I suspect that Rihanna knows that always wins out.