Formation, Beyonce Flashcards
Context
Lead single for her 6th studio album “lemonade”
Best selling album of 2016
Directed by Melina Matsoukas who made 9 music videos for Beyonce before
“The historical impact of slavery on black love, and what it has done to the black family”
“One of the most political music videos in recent memory”
Antebellum period
Art style/fashion
Marked by the development of separation of Northern and Southern economics
North focused on industry
South on agriculture
1815: cotton primary crop
Slavery provided labour
Slave codes
State laws established to determine the status of enslaved people
Children couldn’t go to school
Prevented from reading/writing
Couldn’t own property
Couldn’t fight back
Permission to be away from their “owners”
Could not assemble unless a white person was present
Southern bells
Young, unmarried women in the plantation
Upper class society
Status for wealth
White corset dressed
Paddle fans
Parasols
Hurricane katrina
New Orleans worst affected with 53 failures of the levees and floodwalls
80% was submerged
1,577 died
Response to the hurricane
US gov criticised for response
3000 people sought refuge in the super dome stadium
Conditions were unhygienic, shortages of food/water
Lotting was common
Impact of the hurricane
Obama: “plagued by structural inequalities… especially poor people. especially people of colour (2015)
NBC Universal sponsored an hour long celeb driven benefit concert September 2 2005
Racial tensions grew
BLM
Neighbourhood watch guy killed a black main in claimed self-defence
Started on twitter in 2013
Protest in 2015 over another black man being killed by an officer
#BLM was used 52,000 times in August 2015
Out of 990 shootings in 2015, 40% were POC but they make up only 13% of the US population
Political zeitgeist
Defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas/beliefs
Challenges colonial discourses and critiques the exploitation and discrimination of black people
Mammy stereotypes
Maid taking care of her family
Doesn’t have a life of her own
There to support
Putting aside her own desires/needs for a white family
Jezebel stereotype
Over sexualised
Only power is her body and influence over men
Sapphire stereotype
Sharp tongue
Manipulative
Emasculates
Intersectionality
Understanding how aspects of a persons social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege
EG: gender, race, class, sexuality and physical ability
Theorists to link
Roland Barthes
Claude Levi Straus
Stuart Hall
David Guantlett
bell hooks
Lisbet Van Zoonen
Paul Gilroy
