Black Lives Matter Movement Timeline

For one complete week, I emptied the entirety of my music library and left one album, Beyoncé’s latest debut, Lemonade. So, how did it fare? The R&B album, which was released via short film on HBO, caught viewers by surprise as Beyoncé revealed a powerful message of infidelity, feminism, and the meaning of blackness in America. As in classic Beyoncé nature, the album since its release has received critical acclaim and achieved the most simultaneous Hot 100 hits that any female artist has ever held. The twelve records separated into the phases of intuition, denial, anger, apathy, emptiness, loss, accountability, reformation, forgiveness, resurrection, hope and redemption. The album’s opening track,”Pray You Catch Me,” is breathless and haunting and sets the tone of the album.

On April 23, Beyonce and Warsan Shire debuted an empowering visual album titled Lemonade in an HBO special dedicated to Black women. It depicted the journey of self-knowledge and healing through stages over a period of time; in the following order intuition, denial, anger, apathy, emptiness, loss, accountability, reformation, forgiveness,resurrection, hope, and redemption. Within each segment lies a woman dealing with her internal demons, societal pressure set against her, her relationship to those close to her, and the connection that she has to the world around her. All the while using haunting imagery to emphasize the power of her story that connects her to the past, present, and future through the art of cinematography, music and poetry.

She uses the identity politics of recognition to uplift black womanhood. Beyoncé’s sixth studio album, Lemonade, released April 23, 2016, is a “56-minute narrative movie mixing music, documentary and experimental elements” (Bale, 2016) incorporated into a visual album. In Lemonade, Beyoncé uses her artistry to acknowledge the duality of how Black womanhood is positioned between the oppression of race and gender. Beyoncé’s Lemonade album showcases the racism, sexism, and socio-cultural politics that black women experience. Throughout the whole visual album, black women appear representing the past, present, and future.

The Black Lives Matter movement has swept across America. It 's branched out with chapters in over 31 cities and held rallies and boycotts across the United States(Sidner). The Black Lives Matter movement started with the outrage of the death of a young man. It continues to take over headlines and raise awareness on police brutality and inequality. However, the movement has met resistance from the All Lives Matter group. This group thinks that Black Lives Matter is a movement to express hatred towards other races. However, statistics, the views of fellow citizens, and the overall purpose of the Black Lives Matter movement, can prove that the movement wasn 't meant to express hate on other races and that we need to support the movement instead of going against it.

Referencing people who have lost their lives because of their gender and the color of their skin is supposed to show that the world is not perfect and mistakes have been made in the past. As she calls for self-appreciation and love, she also calls for unity and growth. Beyoncé teaches her listeners that they must understand and learn from their history to create a better future for tomorrow and the generations to come. The title Lemonade is a seemingly perfect node to taking the ingredients of life to create a meaningful and bright future. Beyoncé explains that although life may seem dark and gloomy, there is always a light at the end of the

Who runs the world? Beyoncé Knowles, or Queen B for short, is one of the feminist leaders in today’s world. People may view her as conforming to society, but I see her as being an independent woman by expressing her erotic feelings for her own pleasure. Thought her videos and lyrics, she expresses her feelings and uses her body as freely as she wants with no restraints. These women, Audre Lorde and bell hooks, helped me look into deeper meanings, things I never would have thought of on a normal day.

“I don’t know which of us has been more blind… you, in your refusal to adapt to a changing world… or me for following you this far down your well intentioned path” - Wonder Woman. After viewing the documentary film “Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Super heroines” viewers might find be asking themselves how they have been blind to realizing women today are still allowing themselves to be dictated by men. Women have been restricted to fill stereotypical roles on screen as well as off. In the documentary interviewers find it hard to name even a few female superheroes that have played the lead in a movie. Consider the few that have landed

These depictions lead female adolescents and peoples of color to perceive themselves as useful but not important in society which causes them to interact and behave differently with others. While these characters have many positive qualities, they are shoved into stereotypical and archetypical boxes that reduces their worth to the viewers. The female characters provide strong examples of women towards young viewers but are followed up with a reason why the female character should be put in a corner. The characters of color have noble intentions and are respected but pushed to the sidelines when their cause gets show time by the male protagonists. Thus, while these characters do provide positive and influential examples to adolescent viewers, the characters have easily definable qualities that can negatively affect the viewers. As such, young viewers can follow either the vigilantism or heroism route since they are impressionable by huge media figures. This suggests that directors and creators of superhero television shows should diversify their cast with a purpose to express that women and minorities can break social barriers and are important to

Beyonce’s “Lemonade” album gained a lot of praises for its artistic portrayal of various emotions, but it also displayed the pop singer’s twisted understanding of Christianity.

To begin, “Beyoncé’s Lemonade: When Life Gave Us Lemons, We Saved the World” illustrated the central claim that Beyoncé performed her album to articulate black solidarity as well as forgiveness and hope (Miles). As the author, Corey Miles, stated, “Beyoncé’s visual musical album Lemonade (2016) is… important because… the vocal and visual narrative speaks to the historical marginalized experience of black women by both society and hip-hop.” Miles discussed how black women disregarded black men and connected that to the thematic concepts in the first half of the album, such as denial and anger (Genius). Moreover, Miles connected the second half of the album which included “All Night,” to the concepts of hope and forgiveness. Beyoncé wrote her lyrics to forgive the black man, in reference to her cheating husband, to turn back into the independent women she once lived as before the relationship. Miles described how the structure of the work connected to bell hooks’ piece, “Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism,” since that women of color felt as if only white women took part in the feminist movement.

Everyone knows Beyonce as being the queen of R&B/Soul, and everything she touches turns into gold. She is typically known for sticking with her one familiar genre, but she went out on a limb recently and experimented with several genres that would seem out of her comfort zone, such as Rock, Country, Reggae, Folk, etc, and also used this as an opportunity to speak about issues that black women face day to day, in, and, outside their community. Furthermore it makes this album not only a bittersweet emotional rollercoaster, but an ode to black women all over. After being on a short hiatus she came back and made the world stop when she dropped Lemonade, and once again proved why she is not only the queen of R&B/Soul, but the queen of everything.

Live at Oprah Winfrey’s final show, “Oprah’s Secret Spectacular”, Beyoncé staged a striking artistic performance that was viewed as an amazing piece of entertainment. The simple yet effective jazz-funk choreography perfectly complimented her live rendition of ‘Run the World’. The eye-catching costumes created a powerful atmosphere, showcasing the females on stage as strong and independent. The performance presents the ideas of women being commanding, in control and powerful individuals who, in Beyoncé’s eyes, “Run the World”. The key message of Beyoncé’s performance is that females have become so empowered, that they are equally as good as men at anything they set their minds to, which is continuously shown through the lyrics, costuming and

Upon viewing both superhero films: The Incredibles and Wonder Woman, I was able to identify the distinctions between gender roles and gender portrayals among the characters presented. This analysis will include the comparison between both films and how they’ve immersed into a world of mainstream consciousness, as well as examining the typical and atypical ways in how male and female superheroes are portrayed. Furthermore, we’ll be demonstrating the transfiguration of mass media throughout the past decade and where it stands as of late.

Set on the aphorism of "when life serves you lemons, make lemonade," (as you will hear delivered by Jay-Z's grandmother), Beyoncé presents her first narrative, bringing back warm memories of Destiny's Child's Destiny Fulfilled. Lemonade's trajectory, however, isn't as victorious and joyous. It's an acutely desolate voyage through the experience of infidelity, each song exploring various emotional stages, like unease, paranoia, inferiority, fury and longing. These stages are broken down and expounded on in the partnering mini-film of the same title (aired on HBO on 4/23), where her main character's micro dilemma is used to discuss interrelated, macro gender and familial issues, like generational abuse, unfaithfulness and paternal abandonment. Touched on are the sacrifices and

Beyonce’s Visual Album presents itself to viewers and music lovers as a statement in self-determination. Sometimes that determination comes in different forms, like the determination to broadcast a subject that should be given more attention but does not in our communities. After many months of anticipation, Beyonce released her self titled album overnight two weeks before the Christmas holiday on December 13th, 2013. After only three days on sale, Beyonce 's album broke the U.S. iTunes Store 's record for the largest sales week for an album. Her influence on pop culture and message through her music is undeniable.