Nina Lu- Core Response 4

     

    Marquis Bey’s article on Beyonce is a deep dive on this phenomenon of how Beyonce defined the “Black Normal,” as the perfect “codified” Black woman made palatable through the palatable lens of “whiteness and maleness,” and used her power to break the boundary of that definition to include a more authentic voice of Black women (Bey 165). 

An example of Beyonce meeting this quota of the “Black Normal '' was her placing herself in a space of “index feminine whiteness” through the lyrics and feel of her earlier songs. The white male perspective was drawn to her songs because she was always in a position that was below the man, where she was powerless in the presence of her lover.  However, in her later album, Lemonade (2016), Beyonce loses some of that white male audience by not serving them the content that would place them on a pedestal. Through the release of this album, Beyonce dives into topics such as  “the looming threat of anti-Back police violence,” and other uncomfortable but more pressing social matters to her community that is less digestible to the white audience. She’s now seen as an “agitating socio political commentator” (Bey 165)

Despite many critics speaking out that they didn’t like this “new Beyonce,” the general public was still forced into this space to acknowledge this phenomenon of the “Black Normal” and deconstruct their understanding of how Black women experienced life through society.

 This acknowledgement was captured perfectly in SNL’s “The Day Beyonce Turned Black” skit that aired on February 14th, 2016. There’s multiple jokes with white people sobbing and falling to the ground when they “find out Beyonce is black,” or just realize they don’t relate to the new songs on the Lemonade album. The most self-aware joke was when one white actor said “maybe this song isn’t for us?” and another white actor replied “But usually everything is!”

The sketch is an excellent example of the conversations that Beyonce has started by calling society to question what “Black Normal” is. What other celebrities do you see changing how societies view different cultures through their art/influence? What conversations have spun off of them?


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