Brendan O'Neill on Rihanna and the New Culture Police
Her "Bitch Better Have My Money" video is a slick, seven-minute slice of all of Rihanna's glorious pop toxicity-and that's "problematic."
Rihanna has recently rattled the new policers of culture, that growing army of online warriors who think nothing of judging art and entertainment not by whether it's good but whether it says the right thing. Rihanna's video for her new song, "Bitch Better Have My Money," is a Tarantino-esque, blaxpolitation-style mini-movie in which Rihanna plays a woman screwed over by her rich accountant who decides to get revenge by kidnapping his beautiful, blond wife.
Said wife is shown hanging upside down from a rope in a warehouse, being hit on the head with a bottle, and suffering other abuses at the hands of Rihanna and her crew, all while Rihanna sings: "Bitch better have my money!" Look, it won't make Werner Herzog feel threatened, but it's a slick, seven-minute slice of all of Rihanna's glorious pop toxicity, writes Brendan O'Neill. That is, unless you're one of the new culture-policers, in which case it's an outrageous glorification of misogyny, racism, and violence.