In her Slate article “We Need to Talk about Rihanna,” Ann Powers compares Rihanna’s fraught relationship with Chris Brown to Fanny Brice’s “disastrous” marriage to reputed gangster Nicky Arnstein. Powers writes that both women ended up defined by their relationships, as reflected in their music, including Brice’s signature song “My Man.”
Though Powers desn’t say so, the song is particularly shocking today because of four lines in the lyrics:
He isn’t good - he isn’t true - he beats me, too - what can I do?
Parse the words and the song portrays women as creatures who lose control over their lives when they fall in love. In this view, sexual chemistry is a mysterious and irresistible force that robs women of any possibiity of personal agency. Fall for the wrong man, and you risk becoming stuck, doomed to stay with a man who doesn’t love you as much as you love him, even if you know you could die at his hands.
This fatalistic view that women are slaves to love resonated with French songstress Edith Piaf. Less than five foot tall, Piaf was the “Little Sparrow,” a waif from the rough streets of Pigalle in Paris. She was exposed to the carnal side of love early, when she was raised by the prostitutes in her grandmother’s brothel after her mother abandoned her there.
Piaf’s heartrending version of the song reminds us that this portrayal of women as powerless in the face of love is often intertwined with issues of class. The subtext is that poor women lead lesser lives because they are ruled by their passions. Indeed poverty is the punishment they face because of their irrepressible sexuality. Upper class women, on the other hand, are above such passions, which allows them to maintain some control over their destinies. However, if they succumb to their baser instincts, they risk falling into poverty as punishment as well.
This morality tale is embodied in the French apache dance, a fable about violence between men and women that often seemed like a snapshot of Piaf’s life. This grainy 1934 film clip of Alex and Dorrano follows the traditional plot. The woman is a prostitute, hiding money from a client in her garter. Her pimp spots her deceit and slaps her around as punishment for holding out on him. They engage in a violent pas de deux, including times when the man pulls her by the hair and then throws her to the ground.
She’s tough and tries to give as good as she gets. But inevitably she is killed, and her pimp lover throws her lifeless body over his shoulder like slaughtered prey.
As this 1938 version shows, the plot sometimes included more than one woman, verifying that the men are not only dangerous but faithless.
I remember seeing apache dances performed live on early TV variety shows in the 1950′s. The dance was usually done in earnest, but as early as 1941, Jimmy Durante played it for laughs by dressing in drag and playing the women’s role. At this suggests, the dance was so recognizable that no explanation to the audience was necessary.
This 1960 apache dance by “The Rivieras” from an Australian ABC variety show offers a complete comedic turnabout. The song “My Man/Mon Homme” plays in the background at times, but the violence is stylized, with the woman turning the tables on the man. Times were changing, and the “woman as tragic waif” meme was going out of fashion.
By 1968, the Women’s Liberation movement meant that Barbra Streisand chose to excise those four lines when she sang “My Man” in the movie “Funny Girl” about Brice’s life. Some women could still identify with choosing the wrong guy, but they would draw the line at violence. Streisand’s astounding vocal histrionics make us feel Brice’s pain, but the idea that loving a man means being willing to take a beating was finally unacceptable. Streisand understood that a modern audience would not respect and identify with Brice if she sang those words.
On their way to the Grammy Awards in 2009, the couple began to argue. Though details are sketchy, Brown apparently pulled the car over and beat Rihanna so badly that she had to cancel her appearance. The picture of her battered face reminds us that violence isn’t romantic, and it isn’t the stuff of farce.
Though Brown was arrested and prosecuted, he erupted again in 2011. He stormed off the set of ABC’s “Good Morning America” and broke a windw on the street after being asked questions he didn’t like.
Now we learn that Rihanna has reunited with Brown. Does her move signal a step backward? Are we doomed to repeat history because we did not learn our lesson? Or does Rihanna serve as a reminder about why we don’t want to go there again? I think we all worry that all of her fame and her money cannot protect her from harm.
Perhaps no one expresses our concerns better than T. Miller, who won last year’s Black Poet Society slam at Michigan State University with this amazing performance. We have come a long way, baby.
Thank you for sharing Ms. Miller’s poem and performance!