Beyoncé’s Soft Power
Abstract
<jats:p>This article charts Beyoncé’s multimedia intervention into the politics of
the Trump presidency as she draws on the work of black Muslim and Latinx artists to
challenge white monopolies on representation in the Breitbart era. It specifically
looks at the political interventions Beyoncé staged through collaborations with Warsan
Shire, a British poet born in Kenya to Somali parents; Awol Erizku, an Ethiopian-born
American artist raised in the Bronx; and Daniela Vesco, a Costa Rican photographer.
This collective of artists forge a black aesthetics at a heightened level of visibility,
using new performative technologies to intervene in the politics of #BlackLivesMatter,
crackdowns on Muslim and Latinx refugees and immigrants, the proposed wall with Mexico,
and neo-Nazi mobilization. Focusing on Beyoncé’s pregnancy announcement, the article
explores the politics of representation of black bodies and black lives, as she transforms
the trope of suffering black mothers and their martyred black youth into a celebration
of black motherhood and the pregnant body. These images are consciously rooted in
a genealogy of black women’s representations of black women’s bodies. Despite the
political power of these interventions, accusations were leveled at Beyoncé of cultural
appropriation and exploitation of suffering by the neoliberal entertainment machine.
By mentoring these artists, Beyoncé sought to convey the fertility of creative foment
across borders and power hierarchies, even if her star power ultimately eclipsed the
message as well as the marginalized artist that she sought to highlight.</jats:p>
Type
Journal articlePermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/19412Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1215/02705346-7584892Publication Info
McLarney, E (2019). Beyoncé’s Soft Power. Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies, 34(2). pp. 1-39. 10.1215/02705346-7584892. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/19412.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Ellen McLarney
Associate Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

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