Imagining Beyoncé
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Prins 1 Imagining Beyoncé A Case Study in Female Superstardom Annelot Prins (10203192) Master thesis Comparative Cultural Analysis Supervisor: Dr. J.W. Kooijman 10-02-2016, Words: 20.826 Prins 2 Contents Acknowledgements 3 Introduction 4 1 Race And The Post-racial 19 2 Performing Feminisms 30 3 Family As Value 46 Conclusion 65 Bibliography 73 Prins 3 Acknowledgements I want to thank Dr. Gaston Franssen, who was willing to teach the tutorial "Introduction to Celebrity Studies and Fan Studies", even when I turned out to be the only participant. Many thanks for his guidance during my first research project about Beyoncé, and his stimulating mentorship that subsequently led to my debut as presenter during an academic conference with this article. My deepest gratitude goes out to Dr. Jaap Kooijman, who was kind enough to supervise my thesis, even though I was stationed in a different department. I thank him for teaching the tutorial "Star Studies Revisited", which he carried through although I again turned out to be the only participant. Many thanks for his support in preparing my research presentation for my first academic conference, his constructive feedback on my thesis and the inspiration he gave me through his own research. Thanks to all participants of FTM13 and Sibéal15 for all their critical opinions, insightful remarks and encouraging words. Thank you for adopting me into your networks, they inspire me and give me a deeper understanding of feminist research. I need to thank Lotte Hordijk and Britt Brons for their biased views on Beyoncé, and Thirsa van Dam en Sophie Rutenfrans for all their unbiased and critical views on Beyoncé. I thank all four women for their support and the interest they take in everything I do. I am lucky to call you my friends. Last but not least, I thank Bram van Dijk for his patience with my stringent work ethics. Thank you for all the critical readings. Thank you for the endless affirmations of your belief in me and my work. Prins 4 Introduction It was around 2001, when I was thirteen years old, that I started spending my after school hours in my bedroom instead of downstairs with my parents. I was a young White girl, growing up in a middle-class household in a small village in the Netherlands. A lot of the time spent in my room was used to listen to popular music and to practice poorly executed dance routines that I imitated from video clips. Often, these video clips were from Destiny's Child, who were at the height of their career at the time. Beyoncé Knowles was clearly the most important member of the group. Apart from always singing solos and dancing in the middle and front positions, she also wrote songs for them and quickly became the sole producer of most tracks on their albums (O'Brien 2012: 248). In 2003, Beyoncé pulled what Lucy O'Brien calls "a Diana Ross," and started pursuing a solo career. This went very well: she won numerous Grammy's and other awards, and had dozens of hits. Her career has been expanding for over two decades, and the demise of her popularity is nowhere in sight yet. Forbes editor Zack O'Malley Greenberg notes that Beyoncé had one of her best years in 2013, earning $53 million. "How did she follow that feat? By more than doubling that total in 2014" (O'Malley Greenberg 2014: par. 1). Last year I went to Antwerp to see "The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour." For a research project I later interviewed my friends about this experience and asked them what Beyoncé means to them. Their answers were passionate. "She makes me want to be the best possible version of myself, she empowers me", my friend Lotte said (Prins 2015: 1). She continued that Beyoncé is the ideal woman to her: "She comes across as a good mother, a good wife, and a talented artist – what more can you wish for! She is sexy and works Prins 5 incredibly hard" (Prins 2015: 3). Beyoncé clearly functions as a role model to her, and the ways in which she does so are based on ideological gender assumptions that resonate in society. My friends' feelings about Beyoncé are not exceptional. Cornell Sandvoss argues that fans often appropriate icons like Beyoncé "as meaningful resources in their everyday lives" (Sandvoss as in Cashmore 2010: 138). Phillips et al. argue “Popular music, as the folk music of the modern and postmodern eras, articulates the stories, philosophies, and yearnings of the masses” (2005: 259). Alicia Durham adds to this that “Beyoncé is a key figure for contemporary feminist media studies because she represents the production of celebrity, gender politics presently defined by hip hop, and the complex negotiations of self image and sexuality for young women coming of age during postfeminism” (2012: 36) In her book She Bop, The Definitive History of Women in Popular Music (2012), O'Brien mentions that almost all female artists she spoke with expressed an awareness of their responsibility as role models to their (female) fans (12). Beyoncé herself mentions her responsibility as female artist towards her fans in the documentary Beyoncé: Life Is But A Dream (HBO, 2013). She explains she remembers being a little girl herself and looking up to other artists, and adds that she hopes to be an example to young girls around the world. Nevertheless, while Beyoncé is known as a role model for young girls and can probably call herself the most well-known celebrity feminist on earth, she does not involve herself with political stances. Ellis Cashmore argues “Her considered silence on social and political issues ensures that she avoids controversy and endears herself both to advertisers and a mainstream audience. It also assures her a reputation as a ‘safe’ figure: unlike some other African American celebrities in recent years, Beyoncé is prudent, unadventurous and not prone to commenting on issues other than her own products or endorsements” (Cashmore 2010: 137). With these mild stances towards the political side of identity politics, she ensures her global success. Yet, while she claims herself to be universal and calls herself a feminist, she does slide “comfortably into a familiar discourse of exoticism essayed by earlier Black female Prins 6 performers” (Cashmore 2010: 135). In the following thesis, I will critically analyse the complex narratives in Beyoncé's star text that have such an effect on my friend, and possibly other fans. What does Beyoncé tell us about the world today? Researching celebrities When Beyoncé is discussed in this thesis I never refer to the actual person Beyoncé, but always to the star text, the persona, of Beyoncé as pop star. In order to research this persona, I made a selection of all sorts of publicly available material. This means that I look at music, images, videos, written work and critical opinions. As Dyer notes: "Star images are always extensive, multimedia, intertextual" (Dyer 2004: 3). I am not concerned with the true person behind the musician -- I am interested in what Beyoncé as a commodity signifies. Her main goal as commodity is, of course, to make profit. But in order to do this the manufactured nature of her star text needs to be disguised (Dyer 1998: 20). The fans need to believe that they see Beyoncé as she “really” is, there has to be a certain trust in the truthfulness and authenticity of the star. According to Goodwin, this shows us that the aesthetics of pop music are tied to a "Romantic discourse of self-expression" (Goodwin 1992: 104). Pop stars need to appear "real" about their intentions and feelings, they need to come across as sincere (Goodwin 1992: 104). Whether or not they are sincere is not important here. Andrew Goodwin explains: The content of any given persona may or may not be 'true' (i.e. actually built on the real-life circumstances of the performer); the point is that it involves a massive degree of manipulation on the part of the culture industries (not just the music business, but also the media commentators and critics who collude in these constructions). This suggests less a parallel with drama (self-evident fictions) or documentary (mimetic reflections) than with the only area of contemporary culture that is thoroughly legitimated (for reasons having to do with economic Prins 7 power) in its deliberate confusion of the two – advertising (that is, fictions presented as if they were mimetic reflection) (Goodwin 1992: 106). We are thus not looking at persons, but at media phenomena. What is important to keep in mind when researching musical celebrities is that there is an economic investment at play; their main goal is to make more money. There is thus a tension between the star as a person and the star as persona, as commodity. The star as commodity always needs to make more money, but at the same time needs to disguise her or himself as an authentic person who just wants to transmit her or his talent, whatever it may be. Of course, we all know that stars are products that are being sold to us, and that this happens through manipulation, insincerity and inauthenticity. Nevertheless, stars still need to disguise this the best they can in order to give us the impression that they are "real", they have to make it possible for us to choose to believe in them and look beyond, or even temporarily forget, the production and manipulation involved in their persona. As Dyer argues: "The general image of stardom can be seen as a version of the American Dream, organised around the themes of consumption, success and ordinariness" (1998: 35).