The power of the set design in Beyoncé’s video really struck me in Ford’s essay. Ford discusses that the “Formation” video is situated on Beyoncé’s family lineage. On the surface level, that theme could be seen as speaking to Beyoncé’s love or pride of family because that is a typical sentiment to be expected from a successful mom and artist like Beyoncé. But the theme of family goes much deeper than that. Ford says that “creating a public lineage,” as Beyoncé is doing with her lyrics and video in “Formation”, “is an undertaking families do when they are building dynastic power” (196). She’s declaring a black dynasty. Now, I know this word mostly from the Netflix remake of the show Dynasty and thus have a warped image of greed, money, family feuds, and outright violence when it comes to belonging to a dynasty. But really it means the family plays a prominent role in their field. Imagine having the power, resources, and outright confidence to declare your family as prominent, important, noteworthy. Obviously, as Ford agrees as well, Beyoncé deserves this kind of recognition and she already has the prominence in society, music, and now the art industries to make this kind of declaration. Nevertheless, to do it in a home that is supposed to resemble the southern gothic architecture of New Orleans plantations is remarkable. Ford describes Beyoncé’s tactic as “visually rewriting history so that black people win” (197). There is no ignoring the deeply rooted hisotry of slavery and racism in the setting of her video. Viewers are forced to see her rise above it all and reclaim that history in a space that is uniquely hers and only controlled by her and the power she has created for herself. 

The power of music grants the space to make these claims because of its own history as subversive and resistant, as Bezio discusses in this week’s podcast episode. Music provides the perfect mixture of music to help audiences remember the words that amplify a message. Singing has always been a means of protest. “Formation” is no different. I think Beyoncé in “Formation” and her other more recent work is protesting against any previous preconceived ideas about her and recreating them with her own voice, no one else’s. It is rare nowadays for celebrities to be able to tell their own story without it getting misconstrued along the way, but Beyoncé has succeeded in creating her legacy and proudly standing up to tell people about it.