Beyoncé’s persona is about girl power and females being the dominant
sex as what she states in her song ‘Run
the world (Girls)’. Her dress code is very provocative; she tries to
advertise her power over men. For an example, in her music video ‘Single Ladies’ and exploiting the theme
of ‘Independent Women’ as she’s been
doing since her days in Destiny’s Child (Independent
Women, Survivor, Bills Bills Bills and many others…) but this is her stage
presence and what audiences know of her.
(To
provide visual and written research, I watched Beyoncé’s documentary)
So is Beyoncé being truthful to how she portrays herself to the
public? With herself being a powerful independent woman and trying to save the
female sex from being a stereotypical doormat and embracing the ideal of
femininity and feminism? “Femininity is
most frequently attached to the natural body as an immediate indicator of
sexual difference.” (Doane, 1981:26) Well let’s start from the bottom…
From watching her documentary, I have learnt that when she was younger, she would always want approval from her dad. Her dad always knew she wanted approval so he kept pushing her to make her a stronger person as she quotes in the documentary “He kept pushing me to make me stronger and better” (Beyoncé, 00:40). She never was satisfied with herself when she was younger as she talks about being unsatisfied (1:00). What could this mean? Was she lacking self-esteem and confidence with herself in management throughout her career? Or maybe she actually needed that one man in her life, which is her father.
In her career she never did anything that she wanted to do. Beyoncé continues to talk more about her singing career…(After the opening credits with her first performance shown in the documentary) Beyoncé talks about being too commercially successful and the strain on not being able to sing what she wanted to sing. She quotes “So I set a goal to be independent” I believe this is when she began to be more into the feminism part of life. She really wanted to show her true colours by writing her own lyrics about what she wanted and of course what she wanted to sing about was the power of females.
Around the time when Beyoncé brought out her album ‘4’ which was March, 2011 she had a tragic break up with her father as she speaks “My dad had a huge impact on my career but he did not allow me to grow into the person I wanted to be” (6:00) as of then, she broke up with her father. While this whole situation happened, she was pregnant with she and her husbands (Jay-Z) daughter Blue-Ivy. Now from watching this segment within her documentary, I’ve learnt that Beyoncé proved that she could portray her ‘Independent Woman’ persona very well by not making her break up with her father dictate her career by continuing to make music and stay strong, though she did show quite a lot of emotion within her documentary.
In the same timescale of 6:00, Beyoncé begins to talk about society
being brain washed by the internet because everyone focuses on photos and their
life style of celebrities and aren’t focusing on their talents, e.g. Musicians
= Voice. When she spoke of this, I instantly thought that she is slightly
contradicting herself for the fact that like other celebrities, she’s adding
fuel to the fire by acting out in a way that will be judged and followed, e.g.
The GQ 2013 Cover photos of herself
She is constantly advertised in a sexual vibe, which will make the male viewers have no interest in what her talents are and only focus on her physical appearance. “The mass media… all portray women in the same way… they contribute to and reinforce our images of ourselves.” (Collins, Friedman & Pivot, 1978:88) How are females like her-self trying to gain feminine respect from doing eye-opening acts? She is not the only celebrity that does so but she is the only one that has been connoted as being a dominant strong independent woman. This keeps my mind rolling to think if this ‘girl power’ act is just for the media alone and not a cult that she follows. Looking on the photos more clearly, in one photo her breast is showing partially and she is wearing very seductive/ provocative underwear, which shows the majority of body for example, her legs/hips/bum. Participating as part of the male audience that is analyzing how other males would think about this photo-shoot, it is very likely other males staring at her feminine parts would possibly have a few ‘dirty’ thoughts run through their heads about her feminine exterior. Feminist and author Laura Mulvey goes into more detail about this type of behavior in her work on ‘Visual pleasure and Narrative Cinema’…
“In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female form, which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness. Woman displayed as sexual object is the leit-motif of erotic spectacle: from pin-ups to striptease” (Mulvey, 1975)
This photo-shoot goes really dictates what she describes herself as and brings herself into an awkward jeopardizing argument that isn’t brought up very often.
Deep within the documentary, Beyoncé gets deeper and more serious
about being a woman and starts to speak out her mind. “Its difficult being a woman” (29:29)
I have heard this quote a lot of times but yet again, she still contradicts
herself when saying “its difficult” and when she talks about photos. “We need that support and escape sometimes”
(29:29) She speaks of having support
and escape… breaking down that quote we’ll start with the word ‘Support’. I
agree that some/most females need support and that’s why I disagree with the
whole cult of girl power. Women need men as much as men need women “We all have the same insecurities and
inabilities” (31:00); For
arguments sake, I believe it’s the species of men that make women feel as if
they need more power than men because of how most men treat females. Females don’t
deserve to be treated as rugs or used bags. They deserve to be treated
delicately and as precious as a baby (Maybe that’s why in relationships couples
call each other ‘baby’). Of course the male species are seen to be the more
dominant species in terms of strength, but I see no reason to over power a
female. That’s quite disrespectful. Moving to where she says ‘Escape’ I’m only
assuming she means having ‘girly’ days where she can just be a female without
any problems ‘I feel more secure around
women because of the understanding they have between each other, its what I’m
used to…” (31:00) That is not a
problem because many women have these types of days. Now this goes to men also,
men have manly days where they do their ‘boy’ stuff which females aren’t so
interested in so her statement is targeted to both genders but still as a male
I believe women need that type of ‘escape’ more then men.
As Mrs. Carter goes on with the documentary, she says a very
judgmental opinion, which I believe, would cause a lot of argument between
celebrities and society in fact. Beyoncé says “Women have to work more harder to make it in this world” (33:00) As a well-known artist like her,
I think this statement is quite selfish. Women have a more attractive
appearance than men. Not because I am man but because of what they have as a
female. They are more of a significant figure than a male and many people
admire the feminine body than the male’s body. I’m speaking of a physical
appearance but as a business career, I think it’s fairly equal. Being a male or
female makes no difference; many people are just interested in what you can do.
Once you show your talent then you will be earning money.
Within the same timescale of 33:09, she carries on the conversation
about women having to work harder than men to make it in this world “Women don’t get the same opportunities as
men, or money…money gives men the power to run the show.” As I said before,
she is comparing stereotypical men that only thinks about power and doesn’t
treat women as delicate as they are suppose to be treated. It seems as if money
attracts men more than women as women think more about products and not the
money. In a sense I agree with Beyoncé but at the same time I don’t because of
how she is stating it as if every man controls women “It gives men the power to decide our values and to decide what’s sexy
and what’s feminine…at the end of the day its not about equal rights, its about
how we think, we have to reshape our own perception on how we view ourselves”
(e.g. “If I were a boy” Song by Beyoncé)
That quote reveals a little more about her personal life; it does make me
wonder if her husband does this to her when they’re at home, he decides what
sexy is for her; this also relates to when she said she is “Independent”. “We have
to step up as women and take the lead, reach as high as humanly possible…that’s
my philosophy” (33:09) I agree
that women should stand up for themselves, especially when men decide to take
advantage of them and treat them like a door mat as spoken before. Men that do
this deserve no goodness within their life because we all deserve to be treated
equally but in my eyes I think women should be treated a tad more better
because of the troubles they go through as being a female.
In conclusion, I believe she was more independent and more into her
cult of girl power when she was much younger, before she had her daughter. I
think now she’s forgotten about what she use to be and is becoming someone a
bit different, but who knows where she is heading, this baby of hers could
change her perspective of how she sees life “The battle of my life”.
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