Over the last several months Beyoncé has been releasing some
prolific and political works. First,
there was Formation, in which Beyoncé took a public stance in support of the
Black Lives Matter movement, a social struggle she and husband Jay Z have been supportingsince the beginning.
Then came her Super Bowl performance where she performed
“Formation” with dancers dressed as female Black Panthers, eventually forming
an “X” in tribute to Malcolm.
And now she has released “Lemonade.” Though this is commonly interpreted as a
story about struggles in her marriage to Jay Z, a story about infidelity and
redemption, which it certainly is, the story goes beyond that. The narrative of “Lemonade” is a story of
black women in America, including speeches from Malcom X, including the mothers
of young black men who have been murdered in America by authority figures who
get to go free. Yes, “Lemonade” is a
personal story, but it is also a social and public story, and it is all the
more powerful for being both. In
addition, “Lemonade” is a masterpiece of artwork, continuing down the path she
and Jay Z have been on that breaks down the barriers between different types of
artwork. This was obvious in Jay Z's performance at the Pace Museum in New York City, but Beyoncé deserves equal credit for this move.
But with all that being said, what I really want to talk
about today is the criticism that Beyoncé has received for these videos. In particular, I am interested in the way the
left has criticized Beyoncé as a representative of the global capitalist elite
who is criticizing the very system of capitalist exploitation that she benefits
from. After all, Beyoncé is worth about$500 million herself and, with husband Jay Z, becomes a billionaire.
Firstly, I am of the opinion that celebrities are in a
unique position. Because so many people
pay so much attention to them, celebrities like Beyoncé have the ability to
bring to light issues that are of significance that they care about, and I
applaud those who use their public place to do so. Furthermore, in the case of Beyoncé she is
not just talking about poverty, but the intersections of race and poverty. Certainly, as a black woman, she should have
a voice in that because being rich does not negate the realities of racism in
America or the commiserations, sadness, and fear one may feel when watching
black men gunned down in the streets.
With that being said, is Beyoncé an ostentatious
capitalist? A billionaire reaping the
benefits of the very system she is criticizing?
She sure fucking is! And I don’t
think she’s above criticism. I think
that pointing out these realities actually is of significance and that we
should consider what it means that someone of such wealth and power is paid
such attention to while those suffering a great deal more are too often
silenced. Beyoncé helps to bring voice
to certain silenced women. For example, in
her “Lemonade” visual-album, she includes the mothers of men slain by the
police and vigilantes in America, giving space to the mothers left to suffer
after their sons are killed, women who are all too often ignored in the
struggles that ensue. But why are these
women ignored so quickly? Why does it
take a billionaire to bring these women’s voices forward? Why were we not already listening? It is not Beyoncé’s fault that this society
silenced those women, nor that we have granted her the power to bring their
voices to the fore.
Furthermore, it seems to me that Beyoncé, as a black woman,
receives an unfair burden of the criticism that might be legitimately levied
against those in her position. When
Warren Buffet, a friend of Beyoncé and Jay Z’s and a billionaire himself, proposed that the rich be taxed more heavily and so forth, he was
applauded. Furthermore, when Jay Z and Kanye
West released the vide below for “No Church in the Wild,” which could, to some
degree, be compared to Beyoncé’s “Formation” video in its criticisms and radical imagery, there was
far less outcry; none that I can recall. So why is this? I
believe that it is because Beyoncé is both black and a woman, that this
intersection opens her up to far more criticism in America than many others
receive. Sure, Kanye is popularly hated
(especially by white people who don’t even listen to hip hop), as white America
so often hates incredibly talented black men who refuse to be meek, who refuse
to "know their place." But
there’s a comical kind of pleasure white America takes in hating Kanye. The same cannot be said of the attacks on
Beyoncé. In her “Lemonade” video she
reflects on this very reality, that the intersections of race and gender (and,
in some cases, of course, class as well) place black women in a uniquely
difficult and oppressed position in American society. Warren Buffet, Jay Z, and Kanye West are free
to criticize the system because, as men, the system belongs to them. While this is less true for Jay Z and Kanye
than for Buffet, because as black men the system was never built for them, it
remains the case that men are granted public space for criticism and anger that
women are not. Men own public space, and
women are simply granted access to it while being pushed back toward the home
by street harassers, underpaid labor, and so forth. This is doubly true for black women.
So are some of the criticisms of Beyoncé legitimate? Sure.
As just one example, I had to pay $18 on iTunes to download
“Lemonade.” Many of the very women that
video is directed toward may not be able to afford such a price, while Beyoncé
could certainly have afforded to sell it for less. After all, she is spectacularly wealthy. So sure, be critical. But question why America is so critical of
black women while giving men so many passes; question why we are so quick to
look for what a black woman does wrong rather than what she does right; and
question why this nation requires a billionaire to make the voices of the
voiceless heard, such as the mothers of men murdered by white supremacist police forces.
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