Rihanna's Weird Commercial; Its Consequencies

Chronicled by Afronuts @ Friday, February 22, 2013

Celebrities launching their own clothing line, perfumes etc. seems to be the usual step for people in showbiz to take. Though I wonder at times if the whole thing is not a set-up against consumers  to actually sell a product that's not really owned by the artist but just has the artiste's name on it and equally masqueraded as the owner. No doubt, fans will purchase it like there's no tomorrow.

Much buzz has gone around about songstress Rihanna's debut of perfume range called Reb'l Fleur. Nothing bad about launching a perfume range. However there's something weird about the way its been sold in its TV commercial.

Unfortunately, many may see it as creativity at play but all I saw was just disturbing subliminal messaging. While some of these hidden messages may not be fully understood because of its use of symbolism, there is one glaring one that even a dim-witted person should understand. I won't dabble into the other subliminals in the commercial. If you want to read more on that you can click this link to read further.

As the commercial begins from where Rihanna rises from lying down inside this huge flower, we see her catching sight of strange suited men in the distance (also symbolic) who she runs from. Then she comes face to face with a mirror that reflects her bad side. And as she passes through the mirror this disturbing text is displayed:

"BAD FEELS SO GOOD"

She appears on the other side of the mirror now wearing a black version of a initial peach-colored dress. Then she encounters the black suited men who's act of blind folding her with their hands looks more sexual than blinding.

The next thing we see is Rihanna bringing out the perfume and syncing it in a sexual movement around her crotch area as though it were a dildo.

When the act is satisfactorily done, everything disturbingly goes into reverse; from visual to music. When she gets to the mirror again in reverse the text now shows as:

"GOOD FEELS SO BAD"

And actually, that's not what it would read backwards so it is quite clear that the message is deliberate. Saying that 'Bad' is 'Good' is disturbing on a lot of levels. Just thinking about it alone is scary because there are gazillions of stuff that are bad but the entertainment circuit is trying to showcase them as the cool trend to follow. 

Nowadays when people say 'I'm bad' it means saying 'I'm good'. In the Nigerian lingo circuit, people say stuff like 'Bobo to badt' (I don't know how the 't' is supposed to resonate in the line. As far as I'm concerned, its as pointless as substituting 'KK' for 'Ok'). We've heard Nigerian artistes like BankyW and his crew sing songs about the coolness of being a 'very good bad guy'. Foreign artistes are very deep in it to the extent that we had representations of badness being seen as cool; we even had some using it as names of their labels.

But seriously we have to say the truth; what is bad is bad and what is good is good. It seems its only God that maintains that simplicity because man has totally distorted the view. The scriptures says in 1st Corinthians 14:33 that God is not an author of confusion. He has laid it all out simply. The devil who has no plan but to steal, kill and destroy is an author of confusion. That is why man will forever keep asking questions that will never have answers.

Commercials like this one by Rihanna are designed to brainwash viewers into buying into the idea that 'Bad is good'. By the time you see it again and again, you begin to accept it till it becomes normal. My advise to anyone who watches TV is to watch with an objective mind, when you mentally question all you see, you'll be shocked what you'll discover just as the thousands of shocking discoveries I've made.

Let he or she who has a mind take heed!