Chris Brown can’t change the past – if he could, he would have done a better job on Rihanna and then fled to Mexico.
But he can change the future. And that’s Chris Brown’s prime directive right now. He doesn’t want to be known as the big-toothed singer who beat up his girlfriend in a moment of staggering violence any more – he wants to be known as the big-toothed singer who beat up his girlfriend in a moment of staggering violence and then cleaned up some rubbish quite well.
And that’s what he is. A judge has just given Chris Brown an ‘extremely favourable’ community service progress report. Now that’s being a role-model. For people who hit women and then have to pick up trash.
In all seriousness, there’s something slightly heartbreaking about Chris Brown’s efforts to atone for his attack on Rihanna in February. It’s the little touches – the slightly forlorn-looking bowtie he keeps wearing, the way he’s titled his new tour Fan Appreciaton, the videos of him playing with a young relative with a pitiful look of desperate neediness plastered all over his face – that do it. It’s tragic. We preferred Chris Brown before any of this happened. Because we didn’t really know who he was back then.
But Rihanna’s been allowed to move on with her life – apart from all the songs about violence, all the violent videos to accompany the songs and the uncomfortably graphic interviews about domestic abuse that she’s used to promote it, there’s barely a mention of the attack on her new album – and that seems as though Chris Brown wants that more than anything, too.
To prove it, Chris Brown isn’t just completing the 180 days of community service that he was sentenced with for beating up Rihanna – he’s apparently completing it really ruddy well. MTV reports:
Chris Brown appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom for a progress hearing on his probation ? and in the eyes of officials, the singer has earned an “extremely favorable” report. Brown attorney Mark Geragos said in the courtroom that Brown has already completed 100 hours of community service in Richmond, Virginia. Brown has also completed seven of his 52 domestic-violence classes.
It’s a good start, but Chris Brown isn’t out of the woods yet. His community service still has a long way to run, and he’s still got 45 more domestic-violence classes to go. Right now he’s only good at domestic violence. 45 lessons down the line, though, and he’s going to be great at it.
So should we start to forgive Chris Brown for his past behaviour? It would certainly be the civilised thing to do given his level of remorse and dedication to bettering himself. Then again, if we forgive Chris Brown, he’ll probably go on to have a fairly successful long-term musical career, and we’ll have to keep writing about him all the time. So no. No we won’t forgive him. The big-toothed git.
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