On December 13th, 2013, Beyoncé Knowles dropped her self-titled visual album. It included 14 new songs and 17 music videos. No one was expecting it, as she had no prior press. Within the first 17 days of its release, the album had sold 1.3 million copies. Upon listening to her album, it is no doubt that Beyoncé is a visionary. The music videos were aesthetically pleasing and incredibly story-based. Her voice was on point. But that was all expected; Beyoncé has been entertaining audiences since the late 1990’s and has racked up 17 Grammy awards. However, this album was different. Of course it still had the same sledgehammering dance beats and spunky attitude that we all expect from Bey, but this album was different than her others. Beyoncé’s …show more content…
Beyoncé owns her feminism by talking about one of the biggest taboo topics for women: sex. She argues that sexual pleasure should be a two way street. In her song “Blow”, she uses many metaphors for oral sex. Male rappers often rap about oral sex (with them being on the receiving end) in very degrading ways towards women. Finally, Beyoncé performs a song that lets women know that they should be getting theirs too. This addresses the double standards we see in society. Men can have lots of sex and be seen as “studs”. If a woman has the same amount of sex, she’s a “slut”. Beyoncé wants to level the playing field for the sexes, thus making her an advocate for women’s sexual rights. In addition to her message about women’s sexual pleasure being as important as men’s, Beyoncé interestingly argues that pleasing and wanting to be sexy for men is feminist. In her song “Partition”, Beyoncé sings “I just wanna be the girl you like” and other lyrics referring to submission during sex. In the early stages of the feminist movement, women believed solely that it was not feminist to be a housewife, be passive with men, or serve any men who expected you to do so. I’m sure the lyrics “Driver roll up the partition please/I don’t want you seeing ‘yoncé on her knees” would make Mary Wollstonecraft roll over in her grave. However, it is possible to be an independent woman who also wants to be desirable towards men. Beyoncé also adds dialogue (in …show more content…
She is using this platform to show girls that it’s okay to be independent, girly, tomboy, sexy, sassy, a woman. Pop culture is arguably an important part of our everyday lives, whether you choose to participate in it or not. The mere process of combining feminism with pop culture is revolutionary! Since feminism can be often a taboo topic, it is normally not talked about openly. The fact that Beyoncé is spreading the word of feminism to pop culture audiences (which is most of the world) is a tremendous step forward towards gender equality. It is also so important that Beyoncé is a proud, black female being successful in the public eye. The power of representation for females, specifically black women, gives us a positive outlook and portrayal of women around the world, in contrast to societies stereotypes for
It is a perfect culminating moment for how we make, distribute, and consume popular music.Examination of how Black cultural values and artistic traditions across the African diaspora inform Beyoncé’s artistic work.Articles on Beyoncé and her work might pursue the following, the role of intersectional feminism, especially Black feminism, in evaluating Beyoncé’s musical, audiovisual, and cultural work. The relation of late capitalism and neoliberalism to the reception and mediation of Beyoncé’s public persona. Theoretically informed thick descriptions of Beyoncé’s music recordings, videos, attached to the spectacle of the female body in pop
For nearly twenty years, Beyoncé has lived her life in the public eye yet she has always kept her cool, been submissive, and rather quiet when it came to her personal endeavors however after releasing the film “Lemonade”, we are able to see her in a vulnerable light. In Jeremy Helliger’s article: “Dear Beyhive: Stop Whining. Beyoncé Still Hasn’t Earned Her Album Of The Year Grammy” he addresses the idea that although Beyoncé was able to encourage black women to be proud and free, she also she missed the mark by adding raunchy, over the top content to her vulnerability.
It also happened to be a guidance for that particular group of women on how to get over situations and heartbreaks. As for the video, it was another one of her forms for getting in touch with women’s feelings, being that it showed her resilience. By Beyoncé displaying resilience to women, they had hope in getting better and getting over their hardships. Being able to see how another woman handles situations that the audience has been through allows listeners to be able to learn from their experiences and possibly follow their
The main purpose of Beyoncé’s songs is to emphasise feminism and invigorate gender equality through her lyrics. She does so by using by conveying feminist philosophy in her lyrics. In Run the World, Beyoncé sings “strong enough to bear the children, then get back to business.” Figurative language is used to express be that women give birth however then after they proceed to work. Throughout the song used is both repetition and rhetorical question as this is how Beyoncé portrays the women empowerment theme, domination as well as confidence in her tone whilst preaching the line “Girls, we run this motha (yeah!)” and “Who run the world? Girls!”. Having expressed the line “My persuasion can build he nation” Beyoncé is building women up by speaking
Feminism is about gender equality. In the first verse of the song it is very clear how this women is feeding into what hegemonic femininity is. "She puts on her work clothes, fishnet panty hose". This directly encourages the idealization of what being feminine is. Her "work clothes" are viewed as ones that overly sexualize a woman's body for the satisfaction and pleasure of hegemonic men.
“Pretty Hurts” is the opening track on her self-titled album, and I believe that this makes a statement towards the contemporary feminists’ issues of today. There are many different social problems that the song tackles. Beyoncé is known as a feminist, and on each of her albums some songs are about female empowerment such as, “Single Ladies,” “Irreplaceable,” and “Run the World (Girls).” The theme of “Pretty Hurts” can be interpreted to be
Beyoncé recently released her music video on Saturday February 6, 2016. Beyoncé 's "Formation" video forms messages in text and visuals that fits today 's social issues. They call attention to the audience mainly for women and Black America. This piece of rhetoric creates meaning in society by giving us events and visuals to help the
An example of how promotion has helped construct Beyoncé’s image is demonstrated through her album “I Am Sasha Fierce”. In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Beyoncé admits to have created an alter ego named Sasha Fierce in an effort to separate her own shy personality from her stage persona and give herself the ability to feel sexy and fierce while performing (Youtube). But what is the logic behind Beyoncé’s manufactured appearance? A reason behind Beyoncé’s double persona, and why young women look up to her is because women of color have the perception that she has transcended racial lines due to her success in the white dominated society. However, she has not surpassed racial boundaries, instead she has conformed to fit society’s concept of
Beyonce is an African American female artist making incorporating empowering messages for women around the world. She is creating work that speaks to an audience that might not receive authentic mainstream. Beyonce ultimate goal is to visually and sonically entice wisdom through her music. Recently in a shocking video release, Beyonce debuted a new song “Formation” as well as a politically charged music video. This song was an uproar in the music industry worldwide. Millions of people around the world negatively viewed this song as a controversy. The music video and song caused many people to debate and cause a worldwide conflict.
To quote Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, an influential modern feminist, in her song ‘Flawless’ she defines a feminist as “a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes”
The meaning of the world is to speak upon all of the work that females do, and the credit that they do not receive. Within the first few lyrics of the song, the message of the message of the song is very clear, “Who run the world? Girls!” Is repeated a multitude of times throughout the song. Beyonce is clearly stating that girls run the world, and this is because of all
Another reason one should be cautious to view Beyoncé as an ideal role model for young women is that in the end, her objective is to make a profit even if it means commodifying a cause she may care about. While not inherently bad it could be argued that Beyoncé’s commodification of the movement has made her oblivious to the ongoing issues plaguing women. The reason being her commodification of the movement has allowed to her to reach an unquantifiable amount of success which has made her a special exception to many of the experiences everyday common women must live through. Thus, Beyoncé has, unfortunately, become entangled in the “female individualization” The issue with this is that although feminism is a movement with groups of individuals in recent years it has become
One of the duties of a successful female artist is to perform live at award shows and go around the world on tour. Beyoncé does just that and incorporates dancing with every song she sings. She represents the ideals of feminism through her dancing because she is comfortable and confident with the way she is presenting herself on stage. According to an interview in Vogue Magazine, she says, “women should be able to dote on their husbands and children, be clever, successful and sexy and still call themselves feminists” (2-3).
Destiny’s Child aren’t the only ones guilty for this. In fact, it has been a common theme throughout Beyoncé’s back catalogue. Since the 90s where the post-feminist era really took off, we have witnessed a whole new set of feminist ideals; one of the most prolific being the figure of the Independent Woman as a marker of women’s success. Throughout all of its forms in the media
While on her previous albums, Beyoncé was trying to empower all women, on Lemonade, Beyoncé speaks directly to black women. “As Jacqui Germain astutely noted on feministing.com, ‘Beyonce using the specific cultural marker of ‘Becky,’ [a social trope for white womanhood] in Lemonade is less a question of who’s excluding whom and why, and more so just us watching Beyonce be the ... multi-layered Black woman’” (Thompson, C., 2016). It was through this album that Beyoncé changed how the public thought of her. She was no longer afraid to not fully share what she wanted to say about current culture, and finally talked straight to black women to raise them up. It was also through this album that Beyoncé changed her image. Before her sixth album, Beyoncé definitely had feminist songs, but with Lemonade, she used rage to share her message, a message telling women that even after getting married, a man may not always be right for