Those who know me, know that I have very strong opinions on many subjects - some trivial and some substantial. The story regarding Chris Brown's outburst on ABC's Good Morning America has caused me to speak out. People who choose to behave out of anger and physically harm other human beings, should be dealt with accordingly. I believe that when a man hits a woman and vice versa, he/she will do it again regardless whether they attend anger management and/or counselling and they should be held accountable for their actions.
The ineffectiveness of anger management treatment was evident on Tuesday, when Mr. Brown hurled a chair through a plate glass window at ABC headquarters in New York. Shards of glass falling to the sidewalk below, which could have injured innocent pedestrians. In his own words "I just let off, like, steam in the back. I didn’t physically hurt anyone. I didn’t try to hurt anyone. I just released the anger that I had inside me.” Doesn't sound to me like he has seen the error of his ways yet. This is not an appropriate emotional response from an adult, regardless of whether he had agreed to the talking points proposed.
The other matter that is galling to me and that no one has addressed is why ABC would ask Mr. Brown to return to their network. Robin Roberts, who had interviewed Brown on Tuesday, said on Wednesday "we wish him the absolute best and...we've extended the invitation to him and I sure hope that he takes us up on it, because we'd love to have another chat with him." So let's see, you throw a chair through a window but 'we wish you the absolute best', things that make you go hmm?
So I did a bit of my own digging and it wasn't too difficult to figure out why ABC would ask Brown back on their show. Call me a cynic, or whatever, but what it boils down to is money (as always). His new album is released by Sony Music; ABC is owned by Disney; Sony struck a deal with Disney in fall of 2010 in support of Sony's development of 3D technology in home entertainment and offered a cross-promotion of Disney's DVD releases of 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Bolt' in 3D. I think this is a relevant piece of information to have included in reporting this story.
The powers-at-be at ABC/Disney most likely received a phone call on Tuesday morning from Sony demanding Mr. Brown get another shot at redeeming himself-day of his new album release. I'm sure these antics will not affect sales and in fact may even boost them, unfortunately. What lessons are we imparting on our children when they see this behaviour rewarded with no consequences from a network which is perceived to be family-friendly? This is probably most disturbing to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment