How should we discuss "celebrity" abusers?

[FuckOffWeasel]

I was watching BBC coverage of the Pistorious trial yesterday and I had some real problems with it. Basically it was a highlights reel of pistorious' life. They even spoke to young teenagers with disabilities who basically said that he was still their hero etc, pretty much no mention of the woman who was murdered.

What really upset me was at the end they said that he will from now on 'always be remembered in connection to the tragic events surrounding Reeva Steenkamp's death'.

The events were tragic. But she wasn't randomly attacked by bears. He killed her.

Can it not be phrased that way? Why do we always have to first discuss abusers many accomplishments? He is in the news currently because he killed a woman, not because he was the fastest at some race.

Can we not just say, Mike Tyson the rapist.

John Lennon the abuser.

Polanski pedophile.

Chris Brown abuser.

It seems like a big issue is that societally we're driven to centre men. We identify with men. It's their stories we want to hear about/tell etc.
When you tell someone's story, you do want to talk about their skills, education, beliefs etc.
I think it would be good to centre women who've been victims of violent men's crimes.
And more or less ignore the men except, as you say, 'Paul Gascoigne, wife-beater' sort-of thing.
Male violence is like this absent referent. It's hanging there invisible.

There also seems to be a horror of 'damning' violent men - of 'ruining their lives'. So nobody really wants to talk about their crimes, except pesky feminists. You get 'he was proven innocent' (really?) or 'he served his time'.

I have a particular problem with how the media portrays famous men who abuse and kill. Since the vast majority of media is owned/run by old, white guys, guess what they want to see stories about - successful white guys (young or old).

So if the successful man in the news is a killer, a wife-beater, a child molester, a rapist etc etc, the media tends not use those words, and downplays and softens the language used when reporting on these sorts of men. And so the woman's story in this doesn't get told, to the extent that the media has concentrated on the Oscar P's sporting achievements! I have yet to see a full story concentrating on just Reeva and her life, and what she has achieved, before being killed by Oscar P. No sporting achievement should ever trump the fact that you have killed another human being.

Gavin de Becker in The Gift of Fear is good around the language used about crimes, especially those against women. It's not specifically about celebrities but it is about the whole dramatization of murders/abuse rather than saying what it is and what these people e.g. if they used the language 'loser' rather than troubled man.

This is part of it, ignoring the crime totally or just in passing in a kind of 'you can understand how that happened'.

I don't understand what's wrong with, "he will always be remembered for killing Reeva Stankamp" - there's no dispute that's what he did. Murder, manslaughter, homicide are under debate but not the killing.

I read an interesting interview with Chris Coleman, the Wales manager, on this subject: he was asked whether he would consider selecting Ched Evans (currently in prison for rape) to play for Wales when he is released in October. I just felt the language he used, trying to phrase his reply, really reflected this issue:

"Once you mention someone's name with the words 'convicted rapist', it makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck...the issues are he's been found guilty of a heinous crime - it's one that, when you say the words, it makes you wince..."

All this when actually I felt he didn't want to explicitly say: he will never play for Wales again because he didn't want to pass up the possibility of a good football player. It irked me, this pseudo-sensitivity.

I think what is wrong with 'he will always be remembered for killing Reeva' is that there is no parallel statement 'she will always be remembered'.

Of course, I hope and trust she will be. She was a highly talented woman and a celebrity in her own right, and (obviously) her family will never forget. But to me, this is what should be stressed: she was killed, and she never has the opportunity to change that.

I think it would be more decent for people not to talk about his reputation. Of course, people will remember him - it's human nature - but the idea we'd hold him in memory in a positive way is really upsetting. This phrasing comes too close to that, IMO.

One of the worst things about the verdict in the Pistorius case is it silences us in discussing it as a domestic violence murder. We have to refer to Pistorius as a tragic figure who thought he was tackling an intruder, instead of a violent woman-murderer. It feels like we've been shown the truth but are banned from speaking of it.