Formation

Question 1

Historical context?

Answer 1

• Hurricane Katrina (2005)
• New Orleans one of worst affected areas as its below sea level
• 1 million people left homeless, 1200 drowned
• Antebellum dresses = seen as symbols of status for white women
• Beyonce re-appropriated the dress in formation, showing development and empowerment
  -Black Lives Matter became more prominent around this time
• Beyonce is inviting audiences to interpret historical circumstances.

Question 2

What is Richard Dyer’s theory?

Answer 2

Star Identity.
-> A ‘star’ is a construct, not a real person.
-> Their identity is made from a variety of different marketing materials.
-> Image is carefully constructed to appeal to a target audience.

Question 3

What is an intertextual reference in Formation?

Answer 3

• Features footage from a documentary called ‘That B.E.A.T’ and references to police brutality, such as the lone dancing boy.

Question 4

How is costume used in formation to communicate meaning?

Answer 4

• Antebellum dresses (status symbol for white women) references slavery
  –> contrasts with the “pop” signifiers such as tight revealing dresses.
• Beyonce wearing Antebellum dress scene presents Beyonce as a progressive black feminist as she is displaying power for black women from periods otherwise traditionally linked to racial discrimination.
• Beyonces seen wearing expensive jewelry and the lyric “when I rock my Givenchy dress” communicating wealth and success and combating the stereotype that black women are poor/unsuccessful.

Question 5

How is Beyonce reinforcing attitudes and values in terms of gender?

Answer 5

• Wearing tight fitting/revealing outfits and singing sexualising lyrics like “when he f*** me good”
• Dancing provocatively (when Beyonce and backup dancers are dancing in an empty pool, reinforcing Connell’s feminity theory through the ‘sexual’ type of woman, the representation of women projected here is an example of negative representation as they are defined by their looks and acts as a group rather than as individual people.)
• She also connotes power due to her dominant stance like the wide shot of her on top of the police car.
  She’s also assumingly the owner of the house with the two men behind her as servants.

Question 6

How does Formation challenge the racial hierarchy?

Answer 6

Through subverting expectations and placing a black woman in positions of power and dominion.
For example:
- Wide shot of Beyonce sitting on top of police car

Question 7

What is Richard Dyer’s star identity theory?

Answer 7

A ‘star’ is a construct, not a real person.
- Their identity is made from a variety of different marketing materials.
- Their image is carefully constructed to appeal to a target audience.
(helps if their image contains a USP)

Question 8

How is race and ethnicity represented in Formation?

Answer 8

• Beyonce conveys her pride and openness about her ethnicity and culture through the scene where she and her backup dancers are dancing with their natural hair flowing free.

Question 9

How can Gauntlett’s theory of identity be applied to Formation in terms of gender?

Answer 9

• The representations of gender in Formation offer a less traditional display of women.
• All the women in Formation are displayed as extremely confident and powerful. This confidence can act as tools to empower female audiences to be more confident in themselves.
  However, the focus on female empowerment creates a lack of diversity in allowing her male audiences to be able to construct their identities off of due to men’s roles in Formation being background fillers (other than the young lone boy dancing).

Question 10

How can Gauntlett’s theory of identity be applied to Formation in terms of race and ethnicity?

Answer 10

• Formation offers empowerment for people of colour.
  –> The lone boy dancing in front of a row of armed police officers shows confidence and innocence int he face of danger.
• However, this scene also reflects a key representation of white people as the oppressors.
• Black people may decode this scene with a historic understanding and feel empowered due to the reference of police brutality.
  However, a white audience may take offense due to this being the only representation of white people in Formation.

Question 11

How can Stuart Hall’s theory of stereotypes be applied to Formation?

Answer 11

Gender - challenged stereotypes of women due to representations of women in powerful positions.
Age - challenges stereotype of young people being oblivious to the problems around them - the little boy
Ethnicity - challenges stereotypes of black people as they are in control and in powerful positions. white people however shown conforming to stereotypes: police being in powerful positions.

Question 12

“Females in Formation are represented as active and powerful” what are some examples and analysis of this point?

Answer 12

• creates a sense of unity as a force of power that a female audience can identify with. Even her lyrics, ‘Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation’, promote female empowerment and the unification of the gender. Her ideas of ‘I dream it, I work hard’, encourage female strength in the face of a patriarchal society.

Question 13

How does Beyonce communicate her sense of pride of her culture in Formation?

Answer 13

• Lyric “I like my negro nose with Jackson nostrils”
• Wearing her natural hair down
• Lyric “I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros