Lemonade Reflection

As a huge Beyonce fan myself, I was very familiar with Lemonade prior to this unit in class. However, getting the chance to watch it again and re-analyze the visual album was very interesting. I remember the first time I saw it I was completely in awe of how meticulously structured the entire thing is. You can quite literally see Beyonce's artistry come to life through the visual elements, color, landscape, acting, and poetry accompanying the music. That mixed with the power ballads on the album had me instantly sold. However, as Bell Hooks points out there are flaws in the piece as well. Most of her critics lay in the capitalist gains surrounding Lemonade along with its somewhat conflicting message. While, she makes decent arguments I'd have to counter them by noting that you have to put everything into a realistic context. For example, Bell Hooks states that Lemonade is "the business of capitalist money making at its best." She calls out the fact that Beyonce promotes her own clothing brand in the music videos and describes her audience as the world of business rather than women. This, to me, is an extremely harsh and narrow minded critique. Bell Hooks fails to take into account that while yes, Beyonce is a media mogul she's a woman as well and in the context of this album that trope seems to clearly be the leading inspiration. As an artist, her job is to create music as a product to sell and product placement in the media industry is a normal part of that. So to call it out as a completely capitalist gain seems incredibly short sited. She also essentially says that the celebration of black women in the piece, while socially beneficial, was a way to increase the pieces financial value. I agree that this aspect of the piece definitely encouraged people to purchase it but that was only after it had generated a buzz. In order to initially want to purchase it you had to with the blind faith that it'd be worth while, since the album was released as a surprise. Bell Hook's critics also similarly remind me of other's who commented on Beyonce's silence on social issues up until this point. However, I think her "silence" in itself is more of display of the power struggles and racial divide in Hollywood rather than a personal disdain for involvement. Finally, Bell Hook presents an argument against Beyonce's choice to maintain her relationship with Jay Z yet fails to discuss the complexities of marriage especially within the black community. As public figures I can only imagine they felt the pressure to maintain their image as an example of successful black love. Not to mention the fact that they'd been married for years previously and that's surely difficult to just throw away. There's countless reasons that go into such a decision, and in the album Beyonce only gives us a glimpse to how they rebuilt their relationship. So, in my opinion, to make a statement against it is more of a personal preference rather than a fully fleshed intersectional argument.