Make sure to include page numbers when citing material and use the correct format for
citing the evidence to back up the prompt and what I’m writing about. Make sure to include only evidence from the links given and the file provided.
Assignment—What is your reaction to hook’s critique of Beyoncé? What is her point of view? Do you agree with her? Partially?
DO NOT GO INTO FAN-GIRL/FAN-BOY MODE!!!!!!!!
I have scanned most of a chapter on the representation of gender in popular culture and posted it for you here on canvas. It begins by presenting a critique of Beyonce by the renowned black feminist scholar, bel hooks. (That’s how you spell her name, lower case an all. Please do this when writing her name). Pages 103-107
The file is listed under the “files” tab. The file is called “Gender and Pop Culture”
bell hooks does not quite support Beyoncé. Though this is complicated because there are many aspects of Beyoncé that hooks does appreciate, such as how Beyoncé controls Beyoncé’s career.
Here is the last paragraph, her take on Beyoncé’s Lemonade
“It is only as black women and all women resist patriarchal romanticization of domination in relationships can a healthy self-love emerge that allows every black female, and all females, to refuse to be a victim. Ultimately Lemonade glamorizes a world of gendered cultural paradox and contradiction. It does not resolve. As Beyoncé proudly proclaims in the powerful anthem “Freedom” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J_cO2qVnGM&feature=youtu.be
“I ad my ups and downs, but I always find the inner-strength to pull myself up.” To truly be free, we must choose beyond simply surviving adversity, we must dare to create lives of sustained optimal well-being and joy. In that world, the making and drinking of lemonade will be a fresh and zestful delight, a real life mixture of the bitter and the sweet, and not a measure of our capacity to endure pain, but rather a celebration of our moving beyond pain.”
or quoted in the readings:
“I see a part of Beyoncé that is in fact anti-feminist—that is a terrorist, especially in terms of the impact on young girls” (Coker 2014). Hooks sees visual media and corporate-controlled culture as a major arm of the assault on black women’s bodies. To hooks, the objectified and seemingly commodified body of Beyoncé tells young black women that their bodies are reducible to the pleasure that they bring to men, and that their sexuality is their primary source of value.
Musicologist Kai Arne Hansen has investigated the question of Beyoncé’s relationship to feminism vis-à-vis her use of her own sexualized body in her music videos. He introduces the concept of hyperembodiment to discuss the ways that digital manipulation of both the visual image of the body and the sonic quality of the voice play up the power of the sexualized body as a tool for conveying meanings about gender and sexuality.
Do the images of Beyoncé’s objectified body dehumanize her? Do they create the space for an inevitability of violence? Does it matter that Beyoncé, unlike some other women in music, is very much in the driver’s seat of her career? Beyoncé does identify herself as a feminist. In 2014, in an essay titled “Gender Equality is a Myth,” she called out those who think that women have already made sufficient progress and who believe that equality has been achieved.
That phrase about violence being made sexy and eroticized is key here. Hooks is especially concerned about the powerful role of digitally cut images that powerfully feed us messages about our identities and value, and about the best methods of empowerment and change. According to hooks, we cannot trust this kind of visual politics.
And here is a link to the video hooks and Kidd talk about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeonBmeFR8o (Beyoncé’s “Hold Up”)
Remember the point about pop culture making us feel as if we are not good enough? How many women (albeit perhaps subconsciously) feel discouraged because they cannot achieve the sort of body that Beyoncé has?
Another important point about hooks’ perspective: This is an intellectual critique, not a competition or battle. Hook’s perspective is just that, a perspective. It is one way to look at Beyoncé, not the only way. Nor is it intended as a personal attack on Beyoncé.
“(Important–) in examining Beyoncé’s feminism and hooks’s critique, the goal need not be to choose a winner in the debate, but rather to understand the value of criticism itself. In everyday parlance, criticism refers to the stating of negative opinions. But in sociology and other forms scholarship, criticism is the act of interpreting the meaning(s) of a cultural object, including meanings that may not have been intended by the artist, and the placement of that object in social and cultural contexts. Rather than demanding we look away from Lemonade, hooks offers us a new lens through which to watch it. “
NOTE—”The bel hooks institute”, which kept hooks’ original critique online, has been taken offline.
These are links to journalism articles discussing this
Beyoncé’s Lemonade is capitalist money-making at its best | Beyoncé | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/may/11/capitalism-of-beyonce-lemonade-album
bell hooks vs. Beyoncé: What this feminist scholarly critique gets wrong about “Lemonade” and liberation | Salon.comLinks to an external site.
Beyonce, bell hooks & The Audacity of Lemonade — https://www.salon.com/2016/05/17/bell_hooks_vs_beyonce_what_the_feminist_scholarly_critique_gets_wrong_about_lemonade_and_liberation/
https://www.danielledash.com/a-quick-read/2016/5/10/beyoncebellhooks
These are not long and you should read them
What is long is
Are You Still a Slave? on Livestream
This is an hour-plus long video of hooks and other feminist scholars discussing the presentation of bodies of women of color. Its interesting and some of you may be motivated to watch the whole thing, but I do not require that you do
Assignment—What is your reaction to hook’s critique of Beyoncé? What is her point of view? Do you agree with her? Partially?
Note—THIS IS AN INTELLECTUAL EXERCISE! To refer to hooks as some variation of a “hater” will result in a negative grade.
Also–HER NAME IS “bell hooks”. thats how you spell it. thats how you capitalize it. You are not adding ANYTHING to your answer or writing if you decided to find out her birth name and use it as if it means something. HER NAME IS “bell hooks”. PERIOD.
