Ms. Beyonce Giselle Knowles-Carter.
The "Queen."
A woman who embodies the ideal of showmanship, beauty and financial success.
My longtime "ultimate fave" and the person who I've always considered to be untouchable.
This year, I was able to see a different side of Beyonce.
She's always been very elusive. In her 2011 interview with Piers Morgan, she said that she intentionally doesn't reveal a lot about herself so that people can look at her and create a fantasy in their minds of what she might be like outside of the spotlight. It's a brilliantly psychological marketing concept for a popstar because those who fawn over famous musicians the way that we do are essentially living vicariously through them. For the average individual, the famous person represents an out-of-reach lifestyle that in turn becomes an epitomized ideal. In my delusion, I always fantasized Bey living some kind of picture-perfect life where everything looks like a movie.
Now, I understand that this couldn't be further from the truth.
Back in February when Formation dropped and she performed it at the Superbowl, I assumed this album was going to be her equivalent of Michael Jackson's Bad or Janet's Rhythm Nation. I was pretty surprised when I watched the premiere of Lemonade to see her talking about insecurity and marital strife. It never really occurred to me that what I initially thought to be "perfect" only seemed that way because of what I was seeing of it.
We never see the real lives of celebrities.
Even the things we think are "real" are a highly controlled, stylized realism
laced with media training and clever business propaganda.
Beyonce has been working in this industry since she was a child. She's been extensively trained to "smile when it's time to smile" and make sure she doesn't say anything to jeopardize her image. I never really considered that perhaps not all of Beyonce's smiling moments were authentic. Perhaps she looks in the mirror and doesn't feel as pretty as the rest of the world sees her. All the years of her genius branding coupled with my shallow, consumerist worldview had me thinking that Beyonce actually was this persona that she embodied on stage and on camera.
Self-Titled dealt with themes of liberation, imperfection and womanhood. Lemonade kind of picks up where it left off. It's Blacker, bolder and more personal than anything we've heard from Beyonce in the past. It's not as polished as her previous works. The songs don't have the bridges and intricately layered harmonies that she's become known for, she uses samples on almost half the tracks and she does a whole lot of cursing and boasting.
It was like seeing her break out of her self-made prison to become a younger, free-er, more honest version of herself.
She's spoken before about wishing she could be more anonymous. Moves like this are as close as she'll ever get to being "underground." Once you reach a certain level of fame, there's no going back. It's like a trap. I used to look at Beyonce and see an embodiment of all the things I secretly I wished I could have. Now, I look at her and I see her the same way I see stars like Marilyn Monroe; beautiful at a glance but broken beneath the surface.
The world's biggest power couple isn't so picture-perfect after all.
No one is immune to feeling inadequate or ugly or depressed. Not even Beyonce.
Lemonade isn't my favorite Beyonce record, but I'm glad she made it
and I look forward to seeing her be even more liberated in the future.
Slay at all the reflecting you've done this year.
