The Rihanna post-assault photo is out and it is not pretty. TMZ posted it last night, probably after buying it from someone in the LAPD. While investigators look into the gruesome shot's leak, we've got some questions of our own.
We suppose we've first got to ask if publishing this picture at all is ethical. We say yes. It's unfortunate that the photo will be a source of embarrassment for Rihanna for years to come, but we're glad the image was published for the same reason we're glad the government is rethinking its ban on photographers snapping the coffins returning from Iraq. Rihanna will heal and continue her rise to fame. In the meantime, the more people see the real ugly side of misogyny, the more likely they'll be to stop subjugating and demeaning the women of the world. It doesn't take Annie Leibovitz to see the correlation between Vietnam being the first heavily photographed war and its unpopularity in America.
Problem is we doubt TMZ was thinking anything about women's rights when it started shopping around its bribe. The depths to which Levin et al will sink is almost geologically impossible, and yet they continue the descent. That somebody in the police department risked his career for such an organization leads us to believe the payoff was hefty, large enough to sustain him for a while were he found out and fired—which may be foregone conclusion considering he's being hunted by detectives trained in one of the top police forces in the world.
As for Chris Brown, say goodbye to him. Brown had a violent upbringing and is still clearly traumatized, but the American public is notoriously unforgiving of wife-beaters. Consider Ike Turner, whose career plummeted after Tina went public with his abuse—and Ike was both more talented than Brown and never burdened with photos of his handiwork. This image of Rihanna, of Brown's brutality, won't soon be washed from the minds of his tween fans, or their allowance-giving parents. And sadly, after the troubled young man's career is stripped away, likelier than a comeback is a spiral into substance abuse or worse: a life as a born-again televangelist
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