Since 2006, when Destiny’s Child broke up, Beyoncé has gone from being a member of a successful all-girl band to the centre of a seemingly unstoppable global brand whose private life is subject to as much unrelenting media speculation as her performances enthrall and her public pronouncements are minutely scrutinized.
‘The Beyoncé Effect’ edited by Adrienne Trier-Bieniek and subtitled ‘Essays on Sexuality, Race and Feminism’ nevertheless manages to shine a difficult kind of spotlight to that normally directed on Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter and there is no denying that the potency of ‘Queen Bey’ as cultural icon fully merits such detailed scholarly consideration.
There is definitely a debate to be had on Beyoncé. To her admirers she is not only an outstanding singer-songwriter but an eloquent advocate in both her person and lyrics of feminism and other progressive causes, whilst critics charge her with naivety or even hypocrisy in colluding with a patriarchal industry and society, as epitomised by her relinquishing management by her father only to be managed by her husband, Jay-Z, instead.
It might be objected that we’ve largely been here before insofar as Madonna was once hailed by some for encouraging women to embrace and express their sexuality, whilst others considered her exploitation of the male gaze actually represented an act of self-objectification.
The case for Madonna was made by Camille Paglia when she wrote in 1990 that Madonna represented “the future of feminism” because she “taught young women to be fully female and sexual while still exercising total control over their lives”. By 2016, however, Paglia was castigating Madonna for her “embarrassing inability to deal with aging".
It will be some time before Beyoncé needs to address that particular challenge but she’s already been charged (notably by bell hooks) with letting down women in general and African American women in particular by her alleged patriarchal romanticization of domination in relationships.
It is greatly to the credit of ‘The Beyoncé Effect’ that so far from ducking such difficult questions it revels in confronting them and does so in a manner which is judicious and comprehensive covering the writing, production and distribution of Beyoncé’s music, dance, fashion, photography, social media and much else besides.
At a time when the language of feminism has become so popular and so often debased - with the Spice Girls’ supposed ‘Girl Power’ representing a milestone (or millstone) in that process - ‘The Beyoncé Effect’ does an excellent job of illuminating precisely what is at stake.
This is not to say that the book resolves every contradiction or removes every ambiguity. There will always be a very fine line, for example, between a woman like Bey “owning her sexuality” and pandering to male sexual fantasy but ‘The Beyoncé Effect’ provides writing of a very high standard which allows the reader to decide for themselves the extent to which Beyoncé succeeds, in addition to all her other accomplishments, in walking that particular tightrope.
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A great collection of new essays presents a detailed study of ...
