Beyonce for many years was branded as a safe, influential figure within the music industry. However this text goes against that through tackling a controversial topic "Black lives matter". At the same time as this empowering women.
The lyrics of the song help us to understand this idea. For exmple the male voice over at the start and featured throughout. The voice constantly refers to the singer as "Bitch" which is a vulgar reference for a women. This remark shows disrespect towards females and therefore the use of this within the song helps to portray the message. As it is at the very beginning of the track, it strikes the audience from the very start and as Beyonces fans are majority females it will be even more relatable. In addition to this one line from Beyonce is "I might just be a Black Bill Gates in the making". Bill Gates is a very successful man who created Microsoft, although Beyonce is just as successful but within a different industry. However this allows us to link it to the idea of Black inequality due to the fact that although she is just as successful as Gates, he is more superior as he is a White male. Bill Gates also responded to this saying that is was strange that she did't speak these words at the SuperBowl performance, this could suggest that she understands that it is a very controversial idea or that she doesn't agree with it herself as it is an extreme statement. Although with in the music industry, any publicity is good publicity as it spreads the message that Beyonce wants as it allows the video to gain more views.
The costuming within the video also plays a key part in portraying the message. For example throughout it shows police uniform which at first may seem normal but when related to the context we can see that it points towards the idea that the police target black people because they're black. For example in America theres debate that police are more likely to shoot someone because they're black even if they may be innocent. This could be due to racism or in the most cases because of the false reputation that society has created for their race. Eg them being violent, aggressive and dangerous. Therefore Beyonces video opens up debate as to whether it is the polices fault, or societies fault for creating this false idea of this race. In addition to this theres a scene that shows spray paint saying 'stop shooting us'. This is a very blunt and obvious statement which hits both the black and white community strongly due to how forward the statement is. Not only because of the way we have to infer that 'us' is black people as a collective but also because this is in a Beyonce video. We are use to the innocent topics like 'Single ladies' and 'love on top', therefore serious and opinionated topics such as this strike us as an audience because we don't expect someone like Beyonce to address them.
Beyonce also dresses upper class throughout the video which goes against the idea of the time period its set in (1900's). This is because this was a time when Black people were completely below the white and were used as slaves and servants. Stereotypically they worked on Cotton fields, sugar cane fields and as house maids. They would wear what they were given as uniform and (if at home) what they could afford with the little pay given. This video goes against this idea, as if trying to show people what it would be like if it was the opposite way round and the Black community were more superior; almost as if she is mocking the white community and the idea of inequality.
Finally the mese en scene used in this video helps to portray the idea of black rights, for example the use of 'New Orleans' which is shown through the background of the flooded houses when she is sitting on the police car. This was a 2005 flood caused by Hurricane Catrina which swept through primarily the poorer part of the area destroying houses and as the poor were of black ethnicity then, those houses belonged to them. Therefore rather than fixing them, the community just left it leaving the people homeless which again shows inequality. However during the music video Beyonce uses this historical event to relate to the present day and how perhaps there hasn't been much change since then within this important topic or is used as a reminder of what actually happened as it has seemed to be overlooked and ignored. Similarly Beyonce is sitting on a police car which again symbolises the idea of police discriminating against the black community, at the end of the music video this sinks which is the use of symbolism. This could show the idea that this topic is also getting ignored and is 'drowning' and through the pop artist showing this to and extremely large audience it in some way reverses this by, again, bring the issue back to life
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