Beyoncé’s Lemonade is a narrative, a feature film, and a visual album at the same time. Lemonade redefined music videos; she rewrites the rules of music. Beyoncé gets emotional, personal, political, and inspired. Lemonade is a journey, and it is a sort of awakening as Beyoncé confronts her inner demons and negative external voices. Lemonade narrates Beyoncé’s journey from isolation to rallying black women in strength. On the other hand, Ara Wilson’s Queer Anthropology” explores queer history. Queer was once a slur, but now it is used positively to describe the LGBTQ experience. Lemonade and Queer Anthropology show how two groups have liberated themselves from the historical repression and discrimination by owning their identity.
Lemonade evoked a lot of feelings and different interpretations. The album feels like a journey of self-exploration and, at the same time, a liberating journey for women of color. It is an unapologetic political statement full of anger and hope. The viewers resonated with the raw emotions delivered from every song in the album. Her own story and experiences as a black woman inspired Beyoncé to release Lemonade.
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The society gets uncomfortable when a black woman or other marginalized groups such as the LGBTQ boldly express their story. Wilson (2019 p.2) talks about queer identity and how it was labeled abnormal or wrong by the European colonial agents and missionaries. History shows that queer individuals existed before colonialism; in fact, they were considered lucky individuals. Wilson (2019) gives examples of the hermaphrodite and transvestite in Navaho culture’ in the 1920s and the cross-dressing and transgender Shamans in South-east Asia. When the colonial masters and Christianity came, society learned how to evaluate sexuality through the theology of sin, and this led to the criminalization of certain sexual and gender behavior in Europe and across the world.
The criminalization of queer culture was perpetrated by the same institution of colonialism and slavery, which continues to demean black people. In Lemonade, Beyoncé is unapologetic about her culture, and she makes many cultural references to show her pride. She references collard greens and cornbread. In “Formation,” she refers to black facial features when she sings, “I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros” and “I like my negro nose.” She is unapologetic about the physical features that have been used to discriminate against black people. In “Formation,” she also references the police brutality against blacks in America, a century-old problem that continues to separate blacks and whites in American society. Critics claimed that “Formation” was anti-cop, but the reality is Black Lives Matter, and Beyoncé was willing to defend her culture and people through her music rather than creating generic pop with no real message.
Lemonade thrust black feminism into the mainstream media. Gaines (2017 p.99) notes that the black woman in American society has endured a lot. Black women are always portrayed as “ghetto,” angry, manly, and unattractive. There is a lack of a strong black feminist movement to criticize the American representation of black women, which is why Beyoncé’s Lemonade was welcome. In “Formation,” Beyoncé sings, “Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation.” She is advising black women to own their power and stop putting themselves down and accepting the negative stereotypes given to them by society. Gaines (2017, 101) adds that a central theme in Lemonade is the idea that black women are not good enough such that the society cannot see them. Beyoncé repeats, “Why can’t you see me,” and this resonates with black women in America. According to Gaines (2017), black women are ignored to the extent that the feminist movement ignores black feminism. The uneven treatment of black and white women exists, and Beyoncé lets the world know that black women are equally good.
Another similarity between Lemonade and Queer Anthropology is the neglect of their history in mainstream anthropology. According to Wilson (2019), only bold anthropologists in the 1960s and 1970s began researching homosexuality, a subject which had been neglected for years. The field of homosexual anthropology started with lesbian and gay anthropology and expanded to include queer and transgender anthropology. Wilson (2019 p.6) talked about the change in queer anthropology when the younger generation reclaimed the epithet queer as a way of showing their pride in their identity rather than shame. Older gays, lesbians, and transgender individuals painfully recall ‘queer’ as a demeaning word, but for the younger generation, it was a badge of honor showing their uniqueness. Younger generations embraced violating gender and sexual norms, and they proudly proclaimed, ‘We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!’ (Wilson, 2017 p.6). They embraced being queer and being fully proud human beings who should not be judged on the basis of their sexuality. Rather than having a divided LGBTQ community, they all came together under the umbrella of queer. The radical change in queer history also markets the assimilation of queer people into mainstream membership.
While Lemonade and Queer Anthropology have different audiences, the message is the same. The two groups adopt meaning against the continued marginalization on the basis of race, gender, and sexuality. Wilson (2019 p.11) makes a reference to Margot Weiss, an anthropologist who said that queer signifies transgression of, resistance to, but not inclusivity. It is quite ironic that anthropology of queer in American life focuses on married white gays and lesbians, as seen in popular series such as Modern Family . The modern representation is how queer men have fit into the traditional heterosexual customs of a family. Wilson (2019) complains about the lack of inclusion in queer anthropology as the experiences of blacks, Latinos, and other minorities are often neglected in American queer anthropology.
In conclusion, Lemonade is a story of the pain of a black woman. Beyoncé makes historical references related to the history of slavery and the discrimination of black women. She references black feminists as she goes through the rebirth to emerge in the song “Hold Up.” She emerges as a goddess in a yellow dress, and she urges black women to own their identity and power. The theme of liberation is the underlying theme as liberation comes with accepting one’s identity and being proud. In Queer Identity, Wilson goes into detail about the queer history in the US and across the world. Queer culture existed long before civilization until the colonial agents and missionaries labeled it a form of deviance or sin. Queer individuals have fought for their rights by accepting their identity and embracing the term ‘queer’ to mean something positive. The two marginalized groups have liberated themselves by accepting themselves for their differences and living unapologetically.
References
Gaines, Z. (2017). A Black Girl’s Song Misogynoir, Love, and Beyoncé’s Lemonade. Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education , 16 (2), 9.
Wilson, A. 2019. Queer Anthropology. In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology (eds) F. Stein, S. Lazar, M. Candea, H. Diemberger, J. Robbins, A. Sanchez & R. Stasch. http://doi.org/10.29164/19queer
