Lemonade

Sitting down on Sunday night in the old Frost Library I was very confused what the topic for this week was. If I have to be completely honest, I missed all of the talk and hype about Beyonce's Lemonade album. I had not even heard about the whole album before last weeks class. Once I heard the album I was stunned by the music and the visual images. It was so much to take in at once, that walking out I was stunned and was not able to process what the message was. Either way, I left frost not really thinking about it too much.

On Monday, when Dr. Nardone started talking and told us that there was twelve years of content to go over I was shocked that I had missed all the messages. What I most liked about the visual album, and probably what I learned the most about was how she used parody in a way, with the appropriation and subversion concept. I really liked how Beyonce used that concept to talk about feminists issues. Appropriation and subversion means to take over and flip the meaning of it. Basically, marginalized groups can take concepts that have been oppressive and appropriate them and then subvert them, and give the terms a new meaning.

This has been done in many cases in modern-day protests. One recent and pretty powerful one has been the feminist movement towards Donald Trump’s pussy comments. How some feminists appropriated and subverted this was by making knitting pussy hats and making posters that said: “this pussy grabs back”. Both have been very common in protests and in marches after Trump’s comments.

Another example of this, though a little older, is how black people took the N-word and appropriated and subverted the meaning. The N-word became in the 17th century an intentionally derogatory term with white slave owners using the word to dehumanize black slaves. Black people took the N-word and changed its meaning to a term of endearment.

There was a lot of criticism against Beyonce’s Lemonade when it was released, and according to Dr. Nardone mostly because a lot of women viewed the visual album as not the right kind of feminism. One thing that I agree with and stuck with me that Dr. Nardone mentioned is that “that feminism is plural and many different interpretations and styles exist”. Whether or not Beyonce’s interpretation is correct or not according to others, she still is fighting for equality between the genders.