Moving Beyond Pain by Bell Hook- Rachel De León

Throughout the article, “Moving Beyond Pain” by Bell Hook, the author states a contrast of good intentions and of various issues throughout Beyonce’s album. For example, in Beyonce’s Lemonade video she demonstrates black women in a new perspective that the world has not interpreted. In this video, she shows that black women’s bodies are supposed to be seen as royalty so she purposefully puts these women as the center of attention in her video. Beyonce tries demonstrating that black women should be seen as they are, through a new perspective and a new interpretations. As states in the article, “… its purpose is to seduce, celebrate, and delight—to challenge the ongoing present day devaluation and dehumanization of the black female body.”

Furthermore, Bell Hook addresses several issues with Beyonce’s album Lemonade. For instance, it states, “And even though the father in the song ‘Daddy’s Lessons’ gives her a rifle warning her about men, she does not shoot her man. She dons a magnificently designed golden yellow gown, boldly struts through the street with baseball bat in hand, randomly smashing cars.” Beyonce decides to use violence throughout her album to demonstrate that when women are being lied to and betrayed they should use violence to act onto the issue. Some women might actually view her video with this interpretation and might go an extra mile even if Beyonce herself did not physically hit someone. As Hook said “Violence does not create positive change.” I agree with her statement because the more violence there are the more chaos and issues can come.

Comments ( 2 )

  1. Anahis Garcia
    I agree with the fact Hook emphasized how Beyonce uses violence throughout her video as a way to demonstrate empowerment of women in these situations. However, this indeed falls into the pattern of stereotypes of black woman being “violent” or “irrational.” Thought these woman seeing such a well known influential person doing these things I agree they will think it is okay for them to do the same, when in reality this should never be the result. The quote you used “ Violence does not create positive change,” was the perfect quote to demonstrate that the authors intent was to demonstrate how the album was ultimately a failure. Great analysis!
  2. Ruben Genao
    Rachel, you did a good job with the organization of your response by splitting the cons and pros of the analysis into different paragraphs and you analyze each point clearly. I agree with your point when Beyonce decided to add the clip of the woman smashing cars since some people will always look at that scene in an unintended way take it to heart and might be influenced to do something similar. As the author said this also makes black women look like the victims in every situation . In this aspect, I feel like Beyonce was careless to add this since its promoting violence in relationships which is bad in all cases.

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