In true Queen Bey fashion, Beyoncé surprisingly released her long awaited sixth album ‘Lemonade’ on April 23rd, accompanied by a HBO special providing the visuals for the album. And of course, are you truly Beyoncé if your work isn’t surrounded by some controversy? ‘Lemonade’ left fans with many questions. Did Jay Z really cheat on Beyoncé? Who is ‘Becky with the good hair’? Is this album a divorce announcement? Known for keeping her personal life quite private, ‘Lemonade’ puts the spotlight on Beyoncé’s marriage, addressing issues such as infidelity, betrayal and eventually forgiveness and empowerment. However, despite the more hopeful and positive end to the album, a lot of the response to it has revealed a couple upsetting truths.
1. Slut shaming and cyber bullying is still a major problem
Now in no way am I condoning infidelity, but some of the response and essential bullying that occurred was uncalled for. Many fans began to comment on the Instagram page of suspected lovers such as Rachel Roy, with lemon and bee emoji’s, telling her to deactivate her account and even wishing bad on her. For example, one commenter posted “I hope you fall off the stage and break something just like you broke Bey’s fam …” Some even went as far to comment on her daughter, Ava Dash’s Instagram page accusing her of being a “whore” and stating “Close your legs you don’t wanna be like your mother!”. Comments like these show that people are very quick to judge female sexual freedom. It’s important to note that although Jay Z did receive some backlash from the rumours, he wasn’t “slut-shamed” in the same way. People were quick to become keyboard warriors and spew abuse at people, not realising the effect their words can have
2. We are yet to end the angry black female/ratchet narrative
Throughout the visual film for ‘Lemonade’, Beyoncé was not afraid to make herself vulnerable and reveal the anger she felt. However, to no one’s surprise Piers Morgan put his two-pence in commenting that he preferred Beyoncé when she was “less inflammatory” and “agitating”. Even on Facebook, I saw a couple people post expressing their dislike for the album, in particular the songs about Jay Z’s supposed infidelity as “Beyoncé was all up in the camera giving nothing but ratchet!!!” Although some of her actions could land one in prison (don’t go round smashing your ex’s car), she has a right just like anyone else to express her anger and upset about situations that occur, whether it be regarding race, infidelity or police brutality. The reinforcement of stereotypes like this do not help and simply silence the voices of black females, taking away from issues they are actually addressing.
Edited by Katie Randall
Sources:
https://www.instagram.com/rachel_roy/
https://www.instagram.com/ava_dash/
http://www.breatheheavy.com/how-to-prepare-for-beyonces-lemonade-hbo-event/