Some thoughts on Spring Breakers, Beyonce, Resilience, and Race
I just watched Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers last night (I know, I know, so so so late to this party). There’s already been a ton of great criticism written about the film, but here I want to think about it…
Two Meditations on Beyonce, Race, & Queerness
These are two polished-up versions of analyses that have already appeared here. I needed a 1k word writing sample, and nothing from my recently-in-print work could be cut to stand on its own. I’m using this material in manuscripts I’m…
Beyoncé, Gaga, Race, and Sexuality, or, 1+1 Doesn’t Always Equal 2
[This week I’m going to attempt a few “year-end” type posts. Being on semester break, now’s a god time for me to collect some thoughts that have been rattling around in my head all term, but I haven’t had time…
“Countdown”: Beyoncé’s Feminist Reversal of the “Catalog Song”
In this post I argue that Beyonce’s “Countdown”—both as a song and as a video—critiques a canonical, but quite misogynist, style of song. The “catalog song” is a centuries-old format: a dude ticks off a list of all the women…
White d00ds Posing as Queer WOC—or, postmillennial hipness strikes again
In this post, I want to talk about several recent phenomena that I think are, if not best, at least usefully interpreted through the lens of my concept “postmillennial (black) hipness”. These phenomena include the “Gay Girl in Damascus” fiasco,…
Beyonce confirms my read of “Run the World (Girls)” is right
In a recent interview, summarized here at Bust, Beyonce was asked if girls really did run the world. She had a fairly long response, but the kicker is: Sometimes there are certain things that we have to work harder for,…
Girls do run the world, but patriarchy keeps that fact quietly bracketed: Listening to Beyonce’s “Run the World (Girls)”
Feminist bloggers all over the political and aesthetic spectrum have been criticizing Beyonce’s “Run The World (Girls)” for proffering post-feminist falsehoods, for objectifying/sexualizing women in the video, and for limiting women’s “accomplishments” to traditional roles (like behind every “great man”)….
Further proof that Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” is about NOT getting married
It’s more like a negative proof, or an argument ad absurdam…This “All the Christian Ladies (Put a Purity Ring On It)” sort of demonstrates all that “Single Ladies” could have been (patriarchial, misogynistic, etc.) but actually isn’t.
Some Initial Thoughts on “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”
So, I need to spend some more time with Kanye West’s new album, “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.” You can count on some more developed posts about it; those are on the slate for winter break. However, I thought I’d…
This robot is SO not a dick in drag, Part 3: Lady Gaga
So, Madonna chooses humanism, whereas Beyonce chooses Afrofuturist posthumanism. In this post, I’ll discuss Gaga’s post-goth sometimes posthuman-ism. Gaga chooses the robot, sometimes. For example, in this David LaChapelle photo, her “Paparazzi” costume clearly references Lang’s robo-Maria (note too the…
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