Lemonadesummary - summary on beyonce\'s lemonade album and how it empowers women and strikes down PDF

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summary on beyonce's lemonade album and how it empowers women and strikes down the black stigma ...

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Tasnia Ahmed Polsc 219 Film Summary #4 Lemonade is singer Beyoncé’s sixth album that was released on April 23, 2016. The album consists of eleven chapters that display Beyoncé’s responses and reactions to her husband’s perceptible infidelity. The title, Lemonade subtly employs the familiar quote, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” which suggests making the best of life when you’re faced with adversity. Lemons are sour but when you make lemonade, you have a sweet, refreshing drink. In a similar way, the title symbolizes the injustices and negative cultural stigmas faced by black women. Cheating and betrayal are major themes in the album but only because those are things you have to heal from. The videos have more to do with empowering black women, recognizing their deep roots, and illustrating the Black Lives Matter movement. Beyoncé searches into a meaningful conception of black women in abusive relationships and conveys the unceasing oppression of women even today. The absence of fathers in black families traces back to slavery where families were separated, and a matriarchal family arrangement was made. Masters who raped their slaves refused to acknowledge the children that resulted from the rape. In Mapping the Margins by Kimberle Crenshaw, she stated how black women kept their abusive experiences in the family because of the tension of wanting to address, but not wanting to reinforce the stereotype. Faced to bear with the pressure and criticism from the outside world, black women concealed their burdens in secrecy. In the song “Daddy Songs” Beyoncé speaks to her mother asking her to teach her how to inherit the earth. She asks her mother if “he” bended to her reflection, convinced her he was a god, made her forget her name, and made her get on her knees daily. She asks, “Are you

a slave to the back of his hand? Am I talking about your husband or your father?” The effects of her father ignoring her mother is like shut doors, and while her mother is hoping she is still on his mind, he often throws her to the back of it. She shares a home video with her father, displaying how he influenced her and led her to connect with a similar man in her romantic life. Children are taught how to conquer the world by their parents and often seek out partners like them. The similarity between fathers and husbands is a recurring theme in Lemonade because they both hold the most power in a household. If Beyoncé is able to forgive her father for what he did to her mother, can she forgive her husband for what he did to her? Malcolm X said, “The most neglected person in America is the black woman. In “Hold Up,” Beyoncé proves her independence and dominance over her own womanhood after her husband is unfaithful. In the chorus, “they don’t love you like I love you,” she’s challenging the person he’s cheating with to compete with her love. She wears a conspicuous yellow dress in the video, as she marches with four-inch heels holding a bat in her hand. Her confidence and charm reveals the strength of a woman filled with misfortunes yet still able to carry herself elegantly. She asks, “What’s worse, looking jealous or crazy?” She’s over her envy and chooses to rather be crazy with rage after being taken advantage of. Malcolm X also said, “The most disrespected woman in America, is the Black woman.” The Angry black woman stereotype stems from racist assumptions that black women are aggressive, masculine, and dominant. Anger is the undercurrent of womanism that incites revolutions and creates art. In “Hold Up,” Beyoncé construes anger as a necessary, emboldening emotion as she wrecks and burns the world with her bat to create a new world. The Black Lives Matter Movement has the strongest message in the song “Forward” where she brings black mothers whose sons were killed by the police. The mothers of Trayvon

Martin, Mike Brown, and Eric Garner, hold up pictures of their sons, which symbolizes the cycle of the black identity, and how systematic racism is still around. These three boys are no longer alive, and will never become husbands and fathers. The world will never know whether they would’ve been great fathers, terrible husbands, or vice versa. Beyoncé’s reactions were intuition, denial, anger, apathy, emptiness, accountability, reformation, forgiveness, resurrection, hope, and redemption. In the end she is sympathetic to the men she’s being critical to showcase that doing terrible things doesn’t mean you’re not human. She’s willing to look past the infidelity and try to make their relationship work.

Works Cited 26, 2016 Freja Dam// April, and Freja Dam. "Beyoncé's ‘Lemonade’: A Visual Tale of Grief, Resurrection, and Black Female Empowerment." Spin. N.p., 26 Apr. 2016. Web. "Angry Black Woman." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 07 May 2017. Web. Crenshaw, Kimberle. "Mapping the Margins." N.p., n.d. Web. Lee, Courtney Hall. "Lemonade Teaches Us About Black Womanhood." N.p., 26 Apr. 2016. Web. "Malcolm X – Who Taught You to Hate Yourself?" Genius. N.p., n.d. Web. " When Life Gives You Institutionalized Racism And Patriarchy: Make 'Lemonade'." Odyssey. N.p., 29 Aug. 2016. Web....