“Look At This Tangle of Thorns”: On R. Kelly, Lena Dunham, Terry Richardson and Beyoncé
But just as important as recognizing Kelly’s crimes, though, is understanding why it is that he—and other powerful predators like him—are able to continue getting away with their actions. In the case of Polanski, it was because his victim was a 13-year-old girl who was already sexually active and who had a pushy stage mother. In the case of Kelly, his victims are also young girls, but in this case, they are all black. As DeRogatis points out in the interview, paraphrasing African-American scholar Mark Anthony Neal, “one white girl in Winnetka and the story would have been different.” The trick with getting away with raping kids, it seems, is to make sure your victims are young women…preferably young women of color, and definitely of a low socio-economic status. By othering the victims, and making their plights unrelatable to the powers-that-be (namely, wealthy white men, but also many privileged women) Kelly can do two very important things. First, he can continue to prey on the weak, like the monster that he is. And, second, he can maintain his public status as an artist who, yes, “behaves badly” but, no, would never hurt you.
Implicit here is that you would never be one of Kelly’s victims. You who are reading this are probably too smart to fall prey to some creepy guy hanging around a high school parking lot. Just like you didn’t have a fame-hungry mother who allowed you to go to a notoriously womanizing middle-aged director’s house for a topless photo shoot. These things wouldn’t happen to you, so you stop paying attention. Until you can’t help but pay attention, like Lena Dunham did yesterday as she read the interview and tweeted about it, addressing how complicit those of us are who have not been victims in perpetuating the idea that some people’s lives are more valuable than others, and that some people are taken advantage of because they ask to be. Dunham wrote, “There’s still a sense that being down with the predatory behavior of guys makes you chill, a girl with a sense of humor, a girl who can hang,” directly speaking to the way in which women try to fit in with those in power, in order to differentiate themselves from the powerless, all the while only perpetuating the corrupt way our society operates.
Also in recent music news, Beyoncé released a surprise album, complete with music videos including one shot by photographer Terry Richardson on Coney Island this summer. Upon hearing this news, Anna Holmes (former editor of Jezebel) tweeted, “no no no no no no no,” because of Richardson’s documented history of sexually exploiting the young, inexperienced models whom he shoots. Richardson (who, to be clear, has never been charged with a crime and doesn’t have any history of being with underaged girls) is currently one of the most prolific photographers in the world, having shot pretty much every model you’ve ever heard of (including Kate Upton in her viral “Cat Daddy” video), politicians including President Barack Obama, and celebrities, including R. Kelly…and Lena Dunham. In fact, Richardson was the boyfriend of Dunham’s best friend, Audrey Gelman, and has numerous photos of Dunham on his blog. And while, Richardson and Kelly might not be in the same league, the photographer has been called out on numerous occasions for doing things like having an intern wear a crown that bears the word “SLUT” or asking for models to touch his penis, it does not take a very big logical leap to wonder why R. Kelly is a monster, but Richardson is a celebrity darling.
And again the answer lies in who the victims are. With Kelly, they are young, black girls who are frequently economically disadvantaged. With Polanski, it was a young girl without the resource of a strong family to support her. And with Richardson, it is eager young women whose exploitation is disregarded because, after all, “they knew what they were getting into.” This is really the common thread with all these men, and with all predators. They succeed by making their victims complicit. They stroke their hair and ask, “Doesn’t this feel good?” And maybe it does. Maybe it does feel good. Maybe it doesn’t. But maybe, for a host of different reasons, these girls and women don’t feel safe enough to say no. So they feel like they’re participating. And everyone on the outside, looking at what happened, all the powerful people protected by their power, they all think, That couldn’t be me. Beyoncé can shoot a video with Richardson knowing that he’s not going to ask her to touch his penis. An upper-middle-class 25-year-old white guy can listen to Kelly calling himself a “sex genius” and know that Kelly will never hurt him or probably anyone he knows. On a rooftop in Manhattan, a group of educated women with voices can laugh at a Polanski joke because it never would have been us who was hurt. We are all protected by our power; we’re all protected by our good decisions. It’s almost impossible for us to imagine what it would have been like to be a victim. We are strong. But that’s exactly why it is important for those of us with public voices to speak the truth about artists who have more than “behavior” problems, artists who consistently exploit the most powerless among us, because they know that no one will care. They know that people will still buy their albums, and that Beyoncé will still smile for their cameras. And none of this will change until the public makes it change, because we are the only ones who can. In the best, most-misunderstood novel about American idolatry, Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov writes, “I need you, the reader, to imagine us, for we don’t really exist if you don’t.” Instead of spending our time imagining the lives of people like R. Kelly, and making excuses for them, it’s time to start imagining the lives of the victims. We need to let them exist if we want these kinds of things to stop.
Follow Kristin Iversen on twitter @kmiversen