In case you weren’t aware, there’s a Beyoncé concert tonight (you can watch it here, if you missed it). The Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers are the opening act, but everybody’s here for #Bey, who just dropped her powerful activist anthem “Formation” last night.
“Formation” is undeniably political: it celebrates black beauty, tackles Katrina and police brutality, and references Martin Luther King. Of course, Beyoncé is no stranger to political statements – she and husband Jay Z donated $1.5m to #BlackLivesMatter last week – but this may be her most politically direct and hard-hitting musical work to date.
Only Beyoncé could drop such a deeply political song, and then perform that song the very next day at the Super Bowl. Only Beyoncé could do it with a team of all-black backup dancers dressed as Black Panthers, herself wearing a throwback Michael Jackson outfit. Beyoncé is here to celebrate blackness, and doesn’t care whether you like it or not.
It’s Beyoncé’s world. The rest of us just live in it.
Reading this, I’m sorry to say the my entire reaction to half-watching the half-time show was “where are everyone’s pants?”
Also, reading the lyrics, I see the bit talking about black beauty, but the references to katrina and police brutality seem to be in the video, or is there a meaning to some of the lyrics I don’t get?
Well, one reference in the video, she lays on a cop car while drowning in CG water.
Yeah, it’s a pretty powerful image.
The National Congress of American Indians also took out a Super Bowl ad.
I’ll let her explain.
Beware of the pop star as activist (but don’t blame Beyonce)
FEBRUARY 10, 2016 by MEGHAN MURPHY
http://www.feministcurrent.com/2016/02/10/beware-of-the-pop-star-as-activist-beyonce/
That’s one of the dumbest fucking articles ever put on the internet. Or maybe the second dumbest after her call for there to be a curfew on men leaving home after dark, which I’m sure you’re just totes on board with, right?
Go take your activist/feminist auditing somewhere else.