The 2016 Super Bowl has been won and lost, but one incident continues to generate reactions all over the world, the Beyonce half time show and its political statement.
The elaborately staged performance of her new viral sensation “Formation” was the culmination of both brilliant marketing and a steadily more socially conscious persona the singer has been honing in recent years. The night before the game, Beyoncé released quite possibly her most provocative music video to date for the song “Formation,” which featured odes to Hurricane Katrina, Black Lives Matter, natural hair and so much more.
And while her Super Bowl performance didn’t incorporate all the rapid-fire imagery of the music video, it was no less pointed. As a nod to the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panthers, Beyoncé emerged (in a Michael Jackson-inspired outfit) with a virtual battalion of beret-clad dancers who, true to the song’s title, performed a flawlessly syncopated routine in unison. The song and its incendiary video have been hailed as a call to arms for black women and activists, and a rebuke of the so-called politics of responsibility.
Throughout the video, which also includes tributes to New Orleans’ culture, fashion and musicians, Beyoncé is seen astride a sinking New Orleans police car. Perhaps not surprisingly, that imagery has brought about accusations of an anti-police bias on the singer’s part. For example, one woman wrote on Beyoncé’s Facebook page: ”As the wife of a police officer, I am offended by this entire video. Rise above and stay above the strife. For a girl who grew up in a privileged, wealthy family, she has no business pandering to those who didn’t.”
Many have criticized Beyonce’s performance including former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. Still, in many circles, the “Formation” video and its righteously defiant tone has gotten plenty of downright rapturous praise. She also deftly plays with the use and meaning of the word slay – taking the power of the word from those who might literally murder black bodies and making it a rebellious term for people of color to rise above their haters through the power of their talent, pride and unconventional beauty.
In the video for “Formation,” she includes the powerful image of a young black boy clad in a hoodie dancing furiously in front of a line of cops. The policemen raise their hands in a symbolic acknowledgment of defeat, which is interspersed with graffiti that reads: “Stop shooting us.” Ironically, for much of her early years in the spotlight, Beyoncé was dinged for having a lack of substance and even more insidiously, for perhaps being a willing victim of colourism. And yet in “Formation,” when she proudly declares her affinity for her “Jackson Five nostrils,” there can be no doubt anymore about where Beyoncé stands and who she stands with.
