Beyonce's Formation: Representation

Question 1

Beyonce as a ‘performance’

Answer 1

• Beyonce frequently makes direct address to the audience by gazing directly at us.
• She stands in strong, powerful stances at the fornt of groups (of both men and women), and perhaps most iconic is the image of her on top of the police car.

Question 2

Use of stereotypes

Answer 2

• There is a purposeful lack of white representation (under-representation) apart from (we assume) the riot police which illustrates a strong comment on the current presence of a continued racial hierarchy within America (and perhaps more expansively, the wider westernised / civilised/ developed world?)
• The music video subverts western (mostly white) beauty standards - which corresponds to the notion of embracing natural black beauty.
• By locating the gorup of riot police behind the black boy dancing in front of them (and representing the boy as innocent and talented), they are shown as being unnecessarily forceful. This also creates a very strong binary opposition.
• References to slavery are employed with the predominant use of Antebellum dresses; further reinforced by the mise-en-scene of colonial stype plantation mansions prevalent in the deep South during the slave trade era.

Question 3

Gender Representation

Answer 3

• At times, Beyonce actually reinforces the objectifying representation of women by using revealing / tight-fitting clothing and employing several hper-sexualied dance routines. Many of these routines are filmed with the camera adopting the Male Gaze pardering to the sexualisation/ objectification of women’s bodies.

Question 4

How does Formation create an overarching theme of togetherness and solidarity?

Answer 4

• ‘Ladies in Formation’ as a lyric which reinforces a concept within the music video, representing togetherness and the ‘closing of ranks’ in times of hardships.

Question 5

How does the music video “Formation” challenge and redefine traditional Western (white) beauty standards?

Answer 5

• Formation subverts female western (white) beauty standards and adapts them to fufil a black version of the same concept - thus embracing the notion of natural beauty outside the caucasian stereotype.

Question 6

How does the music video challenge mainstream male dominance?

Answer 6

• The music video subverts mainstream male dominance. For example, the scene where Beyince is hsown to have male servants waiting on her every whim.

Question 7

Postmodernism and Beyonce’s Formation

Answer 7

• The music video offer a signifigant challenge to Postmodern ideas and concepts that we are immersed in a world of images which no longer refer to anything ‘real’. Of course this music video does construct images that are reminiscent to actual historical incidents to illicit a empathic response in the texts’ viewers.
• However, these images of Southern plantations for example could be considered merely simulacra of concepts previously regurgitated by modern media outlets (throiugh films, video games and TV shows). Therefore they can be considered another unrealistic version of its’ real historical counterpart.

Question 8

Relevant Theory: Claude Levi-Strauss’ theory of Binary Oppositions

Answer 8

• Binary opposition are present in the representation between black people and white people / the police. This is shown throughout the music video to illustrate the systemic racism in existence within the narrative the music video (the treatment of black people within the history of the US).
• Whereas typically in historical media texts and within news media too, black representations are framed as subordinate and white as dominant - here the positions seem to be flipped - although the black representations appear to be oppressed, their will is unbreakable and they are resolute, whereas white representations are framed as more subordinate (and largely ineffective) within the wider narrative context.

Question 9

Relevant theory: Paul Gilroy’s theory of Post Colonialism

Answer 9

• There is some exoticism present here but it seems to be overshadowed by a sense of injustice and definace in terms of black representation - thus challenging (to an extent) Gilroy’s notion of Westernised ‘white’ oppresion through media texts (like music videos).
• Although Beyonce appears to represent and ‘own’ her deep south roots here as a strong independent black woman in the face of oppression. However, within other music videos, photo-shoots, advertising assignments, etc. some critics have suggested that efforts may have been made to ‘whitewash’ her image, making her appear more caucasian in appearance and therefore more ‘marketable’ to a wider (white) mainstream audience.

Question 10

Relevant theory: bell hook’s feminist theory

Answer 10

• hooks could be used as a stimulus to explore wheter the video offers a strong message about gender or instead feeds into the oppression of women in a patiarchal society.
• hooks’ position that feminism is a struggle to end sexist / patriarchal opression can be used to ask whetehher the video part of that struggle or part of the oppression.. It is possible that Beyonce is adopting feminism as a lifestyle choice to sell music or trying to make a political commitment to feminism.
• In fact, hooks is quoted as referring to Bto Beyonce as something of a ‘anti-feminist terrorist’ - especially interms of th impact on young girls in the wake of the release of Beyonce’s sexually explicit music video for ‘Partition’.