As you probably already know, I'm not much of a "top-40" kind of girl, but whatever, Beyoncé is fly as hell. Even Bitch Magazine called her the "female King Midas." She's constantly injecting everything she touches with a healthy dose of female empowerment...and shiny Gold accessories to match!Think about it! From day one, Beyoncé has been pumping out chart-busting hits with strong messages to the ladies, such as "Survivor," "Independent Women," "Irreplaceable," "Upgrade You," etc.
B recently released her third solo album, I Am...Sasha Fierce on November 18th, 2008. The first two singles off the album, "If I Were a Boy," and "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)," play a bit with gender-politic, addressing female stereotypes and questioning what's heteronormative, but they're not nearly as "fierce" as her more recent single, "Diva."
The first time I saw this video, I was a bit confused. Okay, so... a diva is the same thing as a male prostitute? What?
After a bit of research (thanks wikipedia!) I discovered that "hustler" in hip hop terms means, "someone who gets by in life any way that they can."
As the video states, a diva is "a sucessful and glamorous female performer," but unfortunately the word has been adapted into a slang put-down for women who are too-self absorbed.
Beyoncé is reclaiming "diva" and making it a badge of honor for all women who are not afraid to pursuit the money, fame and power.
Before I go any further, envision a hip-hop video.
Got one in mind?
Twenty bucks says the video includes some pimped out car with a bunch of half naked women hanging out it in. Am I right? If you pay close attention to the very beginning of the video, B walks by a "pimp-mobile" with a bunch of cut up women
mannequins just chillin' in the back. A powerful metaphor showing how women are treated as objects in rap videos. She destroys this common hip-hop image by blowing up the car at the end, and walking away from it without looking back once.Ehren Gresehover points out that she even bends rigid gender roles in the warehouse dancing scenes. Her moves aren't exactly "sexy," adapting exactly to the way men dance in hip-hop videos.
This video is a new step for Beyoncé. Though all of her other videos do "up the ladies" in one way or another, they've never so overtly done so in the past. Hopefully B continues in this direction, because it's time the mainstream media has a strong, independent, female role model for all the little divas to look up to.
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