Queen B’s Powerful Empire It is a well-known fact that Beyoncé has recently released her newest visual album with the relentless press trying to decode the album’s meaning. Tabloids, glossies, news sources and blogs have tried to cover her newest work, Lemonade, a visual album packed with symbols of black power and feminism. However, the media solely focuses on the Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s relationship and its potential demise. Despite Beyoncé’s deep and intimate reading of cultural controversies today, the media seems to only focus on her relationship with Jay-Z. According to Meyer’s article, Can You Handle My Truth, there is an overall illusion of intimacy that tabloids and glossies promote in today’s society. With Lemonade’s release, there has …show more content…
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter, Texas-born American songwriter, is infamous for her multiple top-selling albums and the confidence she holds as a black woman in the music industry. Particularly in her performances, Beyoncé embodies feminist values in her look and poise. At her MTV Awards performance in 2014, “…the most striking image was Beyoncé’s body in front of the word ‘feminist’ in bright, capital letters during the song, Flawless” (Weidhase 1). There was speculation as to whether Beyoncé was indeed a feminist or just sexualizing her performance. More backlash hit Beyoncé when people claimed she was damaging black girls’ minds with her sexualized shows. However, Beyoncé’s composure and power she exhibits on stage proves her feminist roots. Additionally, she wrote an …show more content…
There is a sense of self-assured knowledge surfacing in the media about Beyoncé and her meaning behind Lemonade though she, herself, has not come forward to validate these claims. It is evident that any sign of intimacy between Beyoncé and her fans is merely an allusion. With Lemonade being her most intense and personal album, it is easy to justify fans’ feeling that they know Beyoncé behind her celebrity status. Beyoncé also features real videos taken from her wedding, playing with her child, Blue Ivy, and Jay-Z and home videos from her childhood in the final song of the album, “All Night”. Beyoncé frames Lemonade to create the illusion that the audience is in Beyoncé’s mind, on her emotional journey with her. As a result, many online articles have talked about their interpretation behind the meaning of the album. For example, Cosmopolitan wrote an article, where J. Randy Taraborrelli, Beyoncé’s unauthorized biographer, gives his thoughts behind the album’s meaning. Likewise, many news sources such as The Guardian and CNN have also written articles, decoded Lemonade’s meaning. The allusion of intimacy allows fans to create a meaning of Lemonade for themselves, becoming an accepted “truth” about Beyoncé’s story. However, it is not likely that these stories could be true; one could never know for sure without a comment from Beyoncé,