When news hit the Internet last week that Laurence Fishburne’s daughter, Montana Fishburne is now doing her own thing, as in starring in porn flicks, people immediately began to point the finger at the father.
Bossip.com entitled their post about Montana, ‘Where Are The Parents?’ The popular gossip and humor blog, ‘Oh Hell Nawl’ said, ‘Dear Laurence Fishburne. Fatherhood Fail!’. And many other people I follow on Twitter and were quick to point their finger at Laurence Fishburne. They cited the old Chris Rock joke about how a father’s one responsibility to his daughter is to keep her off the stripper pole, and in this case, what Laurence did was far worse. Forget a pole, he couldn’t keep his daughter off the tape.
But my thing is, it’s really not fair to blame Laurence, and honestly, it’s too easy.
Without knowing anything about the ins and outs of the Fishburne family, how sure can we be Laurence Fishburne wasn’t a good father or didn’t do his best? While certainly his best wasn’t good enough (obviously), to say he failed at raising his daughter is to suggest he didn’t even put forth any sort of effort to raise her. And I may not know anymore than the next casual pop-culture observer, but I’m pretty sure Montana Fishburne wasn’t neglected.
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At some point, we all just have to accept the fact that people who make bad decisions made them on their own, and not with the assistance of negative or neglectful influences. I’m not saying Montana Fishburne didn’t have a rough childhood, as a matter of fact, as I’ll continue to say, I don’t know if she did or not. But I do when she explained the reason why she chose the tape, she certainly didn’t name drop her father. She name dropped another celebrity, Kim Kardashian.
To wit, here’s what Montana said:
“I’ve watched how successful Kim Kardashian became and I think a lot of it was due to the release of her sex tape by Vivid,” Montana, who goes by the porn name Chippy D, says. “I’m hoping the same magic will work for me. “I’m impatient about getting well-known and having more opportunities and this seemed like a great way to get started on it.”
Now maybe I misread but does someone want to point out to me where she mentioned a messed up childhood or messed up parenting being to blame for this move? I sure can’t see it, and I certainly think if bad fathering was a reason she went the way of the sex tape, she would have said it. After all, once she decided to have sex on camera as Laurence Fishburne’s daughter, she had to know he was going to hear about it. So who would she really be protecting by NOT mentioning her father?
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What it sounds like to me is Chippy D wants to be well-known just like her father and just like Kim Kardashian (put aside their differences of notoriety), and I can only imagine she saw the path her father took and said, ‘Eh, that’s not for me.’ Why? Because like most people of her generation, the fast track is the preferred track and anyone who is a fan of Laurence Fishburne’s career knows that man took years to get where he is at. So instead, Montana decided to go the Kim Kardashian route, and it’s really unfortunate because it’s brought shame to her pop’s that may not be deserved.
Bad parenting is a serious charge and the common wrap against the kids who are raised by
