{"id":7431,"date":"2021-04-19T10:34:19","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T14:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/?p=7431"},"modified":"2021-04-19T10:34:19","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T14:34:19","slug":"blog-post-4-20-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/2021\/04\/19\/blog-post-4-20-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Post 4\/20"},"content":{"rendered":"

The power of the set design in Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s video really struck me in Ford\u2019s essay. Ford discusses that the \u201cFormation\u201d video is situated on Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s family lineage. On the surface level, that theme could be seen as speaking to Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s love or pride of family because that is a typical sentiment to be expected from a successful mom and artist like Beyonc\u00e9. But the theme of family goes much deeper than that. Ford says that \u201ccreating a public lineage,\u201d as Beyonc\u00e9 is doing with her lyrics and video in \u201cFormation\u201d, \u201cis an undertaking families do when they are building dynastic power\u201d (196). She\u2019s declaring a black dynasty. Now, I know this word mostly from the Netflix remake of the show <\/span>Dynasty<\/span><\/i> 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 <\/span>prominent <\/span><\/i>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, Beyonc\u00e9 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 Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s tactic as \u201cvisually <\/span>rewriting<\/span><\/i> history<\/span><\/i> so that black people win\u201d (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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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. \u201cFormation\u201d is no different. I think Beyonc\u00e9 in \u201cFormation\u201d 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\u2019s. It is rare nowadays for celebrities to be able to tell their own story without it getting misconstrued along the way, but Beyonc\u00e9 has succeeded in creating her legacy and proudly standing up to tell people about it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The power of the set design in Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s video really struck me in Ford\u2019s essay. Ford discusses that the \u201cFormation\u201d video is situated on Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s family lineage. On the surface level, that theme could be seen as speaking to Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s love or pride of family because that is a typical sentiment to be expected from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4546,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading-responses"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4546"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7432,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7431\/revisions\/7432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}