Why This Survivor Of Domestic Abuse Forced Herself to Watch The New Chris Brown Documentary on Netflix

Welp, Chris Brown is in the headlines yet again.

Not for hitting anyone this time (phew!), but to promote his new crazy-long album (nearly three hours) and a documentary, Chris Brown: Welcome To My Life (currently available to stream on Netflix) about what an amazing fella he is. I’m not a fan myself, but I forced myself to watch it anyway. All 79 minutes of Brown, his mom, a bunch of his famous music pals, his lawyer, and Mike fucking Tyson trying to convince the viewer that Chris Brown is not the monster we think he is.

Despite hating this film, I actually do think they’re right. Or rather, I desperately need to believe they’re right. Because the cycle of violence won’t end until we change the dialogue around male violence. And I believe this film is a flawed but tiny step in that direction.

Calling all abusive men “monsters” is not only simplistic, lazy, and dehumanizing, it’s pretty insulting, too. Not just to them but to their victims. Do you think I (or fucking Rihanna!) would have dated, boned, and fallen in love with that psycho clown Pennywise? C’mon! But calling these men monsters is basically saying the women who date them are not only bat shit crazy but stupid too. Don’t date monsters, ladies!

Duuuuuuh.

So I love how this film attacks the monster trope head on. But they miss the mark and instead spend an hour and seventeen minutes trying to convince us Brown’s this super good guy who’s more talented than God (and Michael Jackson!), made an honest mistake (and didn’t mean to, OKAY) and should be admired, not condemned, for surviving such a terrible thing that happened to him (being punished for beating this shit out of Rihanna). And it also hopes you will kindly shut the fuck up about his abusive past already.

Needless to say, it’s pretty painful to watch. This guy is so unbelievably delusional and his mom ever more so (check out @mombreezy on Twitter—never have I seen a parent worship their kid IN ALL CAPS more than this lady).

But I kept watching anyways. Because understanding the cycle of abuse helps me forgive my ex who sexually and physically abused me. More importantly, it helps me forgive myself for letting anyone treat me that way. A year of kickboxing classes initially helped get out my own rage. But wanting to cut his balls off eventually got old and it kept me from feeling peace. What I finally turned to instead was empathy.

Not sympathy. Not pity. Empathy.

For my own sake, not his. Being angry all the time makes me super fucking miserable and absolutely no fun to be around. And not forgiving him made me terrified of all men, which is a hard way to exist in a world full of them.

In case I’m ruffling any feathers here, let me be super clear —I’m not a rape/abuse/murder apologist in any way, I don’t expect you to forgive your abuser, and I absolutely want justice for victims. But we can do that while also trying to understand why the hell they do this. Especially since a lot of victims, like me, were #metoo-ed by men they loved, not some predatory sausage fingers bossman in Hollywood. Or Kevin Spacey.

Unfortunately, this documentary is produced by Brown, not Rihanna, so we only get to see how his abuse impacted him (and his mom!), not Rihanna. Brown talks extensively about how that image of Rihanna’s smashed up face is gonna “haunt” him forever. And his mom wanted us to know how hard it was for her to see her baby in jail like that, all handcuffed to a table. “Devastating.” No one mentions of how devastating any of this was for Rihanna.

But they did include a few soundbites from past Rihanna interviews that I have said myself about my own ex, almost verbatim. “As angry as I was, and hurt and betrayed, I just felt like he made this mistake… because he needed help.” The help part I agree with. I’m not so sure about the “mistake” part, though. He’d done it before, throwing her into a wall in Europe and breaking car windows during a fight in Barbados. But the essence of what she’s saying is spot on—it’s hard for some of us to see our abusive exes as anything but super sick, complicated human beings worthy of love, despite all their darkness. We knew them better than anyone. We’ve seen them at their best… before they tried to kill us. And we never can forget who we know they could be… if they weren’t so fucked up. We hate what they did, but we can’t quite hate them.

I’m not sure this line of thinking is such a bad thing. Perhaps everyone else could learn something from us.

You see, the media, our friends and family, and society at large like to either pigeon hole these guys as monsters or do what this film does and try to explain away their behavior, and even make excuses at the expense of the victim. I think both of these approaches are exactly what’s making the problem worse.

Because guess what? These “monsters” are everywhere. We just don’t want to believe it. I guarantee you, at least one of your friends is doing this shit to someone they love. You just don’t know about it yet. So the more we defend or dehumanize them, the more we distance ourselves from the very people who need help.

Even Brown himself uses the word monster repeatedly. These are some of the few moments I actually empathize with him. Because it’s clear to me he’s secretly consumed with shame. But he can’t look at it, so he lashes out, defending himself. He even accuses Rihanna of abusing him to justify punching her in the face. With a closed fist.

“We were fighting each other. She’d hit me, I’d hit her.”

In his mind, Rihanna always provoked him. He claims he never talked before about her abusing him because he was trying to protect her image. Sure, she had to put makeup on to hide her bruises before going on stage, but HE had to lie about falling to explain his mysterious scratches. It was just your typical “eye for an eye” thing. No biggie!

Besides feeling somewhat justified to hit Rihanna, Brown also features a chorus of supporters who make excuses for him. Usher blames the pressure of being famous. Jamie Foxx, Mary J Blige, J Lo, etc. They all want you to understand how hard the life of a star is, especially one so young (and more talented than Michael Jackson!). Even the lawyer chimes in with some science bullshit. “The male brain doesn’t fully form impulse control until he’s 25. Chris wasn’t even 18 yet.” Okay, so why then aren’t all men under 25 beating up women?

The film does get one thing right: Race. White supremacy has always been perpetuated by the violent black man trope, so there’s no denying Brown received way harsher punishment, both legally and in the media, than most of his white abusive peers. Mel Gibson, Johnny Depp, Michael Fassbender, Christian Bale, Sean Penn, Christian Slater, etc (google that shit—there are tons of them). They all get to have thriving careers still. Hell, Alec Baldwin is at the top of his game, somehow our liberal savior even, and nobody is the least bit pissed about his violent past (I’m a little afraid to even mention his name, lest he send angry tweets at yet another female from Decider). And white musicians have been beating their women folk for ages. Nothing ever happens to them. Ozzy Osbourne is a goddamn legend. But white people are PISSED about Chris Brown still being able to sing.

There’s one other thing this film gets right—the main reason why I think this film is important in understanding male violence. We finally find out why Brown is SO fucking mad. His stepfather. Brown says he was “a monster. An animal. Pure evil. I’ve never hated someone so much in my life.” He even told his mother he’d stay out of gangs and drugs and trouble. But vowed one day he’d “kill that motherfucker.” The story is so tragic to hear. Brown would hide in his bedroom, regularly pissing himself, as his mom’s boyfriend beat the shit out of her.

It’s hard not to feel bad for kid Chris after hearing all this. For me personally, though, the moment that really got me was when he realized, and even admitted out loud, that he’s terrified of himself. “Having to see my mom now look at he through that light… I just saw him. I didn’t see Chris anymore. I saw THAT motherfucker. So that’s what ate at me. That’s what killed my soul. That’s the one thing I was running from.”

And tragically, that’s the very thing he’s become. His biggest fear realized.

Guess what? These “monsters” are everywhere. We just don’t want to believe it. So the more we dehumanize them, the more we distance ourselves from the very people who need help.

This is all made worse by the fact he cannot and will not see his stepdad’s humanity. The monster. Pure evil. I think in refusing to forgive this man, he’ll never be able to forgive himself. Which will make for more violence. Rage can only be contained for so long.

It all makes sense now why Brown desperately needs us to forget about this Rihanna nonsense. The same reason why he slammed a chair through a window after Robin Roberts brought up the abuse on Good Morning America. He can’t handle the idea that, despite all his efforts not to, he’s becoming the man who terrorized both him and his mother.

My ex hated his father for the same reason. He even tried to kill him. Multiple times. The shame he felt for not being able to protect his mother from that man still haunts him. But, like Brown, he refused to see he was following in his tracks, so he lashed out at anyone who mirrored the man he feared most back at him. That, he admits, is why he was so pissed at Robin Roberts. “You want me to be that monster. And it was killing me cuz (she) was depicting the monster I thought I was.”

That’s some pretty insightful shit for an abuser, no?

It’s a pity his mother doesn’t see it this way. She even said on Larry King a few years ago that she doesn’t believe in the cycle of violence. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never once met or even heard of an abusive person who wasn’t also abused or at least grew up watching abuse. Not one. Maybe his mom’s shame is as great as his?

Another twist I hadn’t expected was the inclusion of Mike Tyson to help us further understand male violence. Oddly enough, Tyson proves to be the most insightful person in this entire movie (I realize how bananas that sounds!). Despite being someone who’s had one of the most fucked up celebrity lives I’ve ever read about (I dare you to Google his past), this newly sober man explains how he had to face his own boogeyman in order to be free from its grip. That all the money and fame in the world can’t make you not hate yourself. Deep shit from a dude who raped and beat women and bit the ear off a coworker. Tyson kinda helped me believe rehabilitation is possible, even if only for a person who sincerely wants to change.

 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like Brown is there yet. He still wants everyone, including Rihanna, to love him. Which means he still only cares about his own wants and pain, not hers.

Despite how many times this film made me want to throw a shoe at the TV, I do think it made some small strides in changing the way we see male violence. What we’re doing isn’t working. If one more person tells me my ex and all abusers should get locked up and ass-raped in prison as a solution, I’m gonna scream. That’s not helpful! Don’t they get it? That kind of solution will only make abusers a bigger threat to society when they get out of jail. I don’t want any more raping happening to anyone!

My hope is that, if nothing else, this film gets people to at least question their belief in the monster trope. Abuse is about dehumanizing the victims. How can our solution then be stripping them of their humanity, too?

Melanie Hamlett is a writer, storyteller, comedian, and public speaker based out of LA. She’s also regular on the Risk! podcast, created Smashing Stories, and performs regularly when she’s not sleeping in the back of her truck in the woods or living abroad. 

Watch Chris Brown: Welcome To My Life on Netflix