Rihanna’s “777 Tour” Is Still Getting Everyone’s Attention

Last November, Rihanna began a 7-day trek around the world. She performed seven shows in seven countries to promote her 7^th studio album, Unapologetic. She invited over 150 journalists and fans to join the tour. Can anyone guess what plane they took? If you guessed a Boeing 777, you would be correct. A documentary of the aptly titled “777 Tour” aired on May 6 on Fox, and many fans and critics are unhappy with the result.

According to Perez Hilton, the documentary received astonishingly low ratings, averaging only 1.73 million viewers. Several articles also say the documentary fails to show what really happened, calling it “airbrushed” (The Sun) and “watered-down propaganda” (Hollywood Reporter). They claim the film did not portray the exhaustion felt by the members and left out some important key events, including a “mutiny” that occurred on the plane. At the end, a journalist who was aboard the plane says a fellow passenger told him, “It was better than being in the office,” to which he reluctantly agreed. A recent article in The Sun claims this quote shed a positive light in a negative situation. The article also says the documentary neglected to include any footage of the supposed mutiny.

The articles I’ve been reading make me wonder…did I watch the same documentary as the rest of the world? The above quote was clearly sarcastic. The mutiny that everyone keeps referring to was a period when the fans and reporters were beginning to get restless and tired of the few appearances by Rihanna. They began chanting, “just one quote,” to coax her out. This was, in fact, shown in the documentary. Granted it was a short scene, but it wasn’t left out entirely.

I think what all of the critics are forgetting is the actual purpose behind the “777 Tour,” which was to promote Rihanna. Of course the documentary is not going to show anything that will make her look bad. They put together an extravagant tour and invited hundreds of people to join them. Why? To get attention. They clearly accomplished what they set out to do because the tour and documentary are all anyone seems to be talking about. The tour was seven shows in seven countries in seven days. Am I the only one who heard this and thought, “man, that would be exhausting. I wouldn’t want to do that?” A friend of mine recommended I watch the documentary because I want to be a tour manager, and even with my lack of experience in touring, I understand that the tour had to have been grueling. I obviously wasn’t there, so I can’t really say I understand what the journalists and fans went through, but I felt like the documentary did a decent job of portraying the hectic, exhausting week, especially since the entire trip and documentary were a marketing ploy. Anyone who watches the documentary needs to keep in mind that the sole purpose of the documentary was to promote Rihanna, not expose the truth behind the “777 Tour.”