In Formation

[intoformation]

At times, resistance need to be pronounced and direct; on other occasions, queers of color and other minority subjects need to follow a conformist path if they hope to survive a hostile public sphere. (Disidentification, 5)

The nod to black lives matter in Formation was quick and subtle enough that if you weren’t conscious of the movement, you’d easily miss it. This could be a defense mechanism, to protect the idea and help prevent back lash from those who don’t believe in it.

[intoformation]

Like Beyonce on my walls and Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God, I felt validated, reflected, understood (Redefining Realness, Janet Mock)

In Formation, Beyonce is actually acknowledging that this is something she’s doing, creating validation for herself and her black viewers for being who they are.

[intoformation]

I took the rocks [thrown at] my back and my head until I crossed that bridge to my apartment while they laughed past me. When I got home, I collapsed onto my twin mattress and committed to traveling further than any of these idiots ever would. (Redefining Realness, Janet Mock)

[intoformation]

“So many of my students, like many other so-called purists, dismissed Southern hip-hop as ignorant, catchy, pop, hollow, shameful. Most of my students knew, and wanted me to believe, that in addition to white suburbia’s uncritical devouring of the music minus culture and the countless emcees pandering to the black girl audience in the hallway and corporate America’s glossy detailing of hip-hop, the music was dying because Three-Six Mafia win an Oscar, Trina showed her booty, Mike Jones went platinum, Li’l Jon couldn’t rap, and Trinidad James was Trinidad.” (Hip-Hop Stole My Southern Black Boy, Kiese Laymon)

“I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils”

Not only is Beyonce reclaiming black bodies, pronouncing them as something to be loved, but by having the entire video take place in the south with a southern take on ‘blackness’ she’s announcing the south as something good and respectable as well.

  On another note with another interpretation, it’s best not to forget that this is a commercial video, a video meant to sell during a time when calling out support towards racial minorities in media has become somewhat of a trend. This video is pandering towards the PC Millennial Generation, possibly even more so by making it purely about black lives and not about explaining black lives to white people. Does the capitalist view take away from the positive message? Make it less real and difficult to relate to? Or is it’s interpretation more relevant?

[intoformation]

‘And don’t take no ass-whupping or no disrespect from no one in your own house or your own dreams, you hear me? Do whatever it takes to protect you and yours’ (Long division, 265)

“I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros” -- Formation

[intoformation]

‘Fool, forget white people. Why don’t you try to win this for your real people? Because that’s what I’m doing. I’m winning this for all the real chubby poor niggas in Mississippi with tight waves and contentious demeanors.’ He looked at me with lightweight awe in his eyes. ‘You like that sentence, right? And maybe you could win it for the tall Mississippi niggas with, you know, good breath, and flip phones and messed-up fades that don’t quite fade right’ (Long Division, 32)

Formation is taking the same advise, the first Beyonce video purely for “the people back home” and the people like her and her parents with their heritage.

[micdotcom]

Watch: SNL nailed the reaction to “Formation” — and it only got more spot-on from there. 

[intoformation]

Woman with flower (1891), Paul Gauguin / Formation, Beyoncé

“one’s worth in the B-Boy room was based almost solely on how hip-hop or New York the other six listeners thought you and your style were” (Hip-Hop Stole My Southern Black Boy)

^It’s amazing to think how this is slowly becoming reversed, how it’s becoming cooler to reclaim your roots than be from the common Hip-Hop song backdrop of New York. In some ways, Beyonce exemplifies this through her choice of lyrics, but there’s always also the question is she only doing this because it’s cool? And then, does it matter?

[intoformation]

the persistence of respectability politics often impedes hip-hop feminism’s attempts to formulate an unapologetic pro-sex stance among black and Latina women. ( The Stage Hip-Hop Feminism Built , 724)

[intoformation]

The phobic object, through a campy over-the-top performance, is reconfigured as sexy and glamorous, and not as the pathetic and abject spectacle that it appears to be in the dominant eyes of heteronormative culture. (Dis identifications, 3)

Similarly, Beyonce uses camp to turn the public interpretation of black culture to something awe-inspiring and desirable as opposed to the too often belittlement and ridicule that it recieves.

[useumorg]

De Español y Indio - Mestizo’ by Miguel Cabrera (1763) Lyric: ‘Formation’ by @beyonce (2016)

She has hot sauce in her bag for anyone who disagrees.

Click here for more Illustrated Quotes and Funny Art Memes on USEUM

[intoformation]

Oh yeah baby, oh yeah I, ohhhhh, oh yes I like that

Hunter adds that popular make-it-rain dances taken from the strip-club scene reenact the commercial exchange in which men throw dollars at women who simulate sex. For Hunter and other researchers, the instructional dance provides hip-hop specific scripts that teach young people how to perform sexuality and imagine desire ( The Stage Hip-Hop Feminism Built , 729)

[intoformation]

What happened at the New Wil'ins / Bitch I'm back, by popular demand

Messy Mya quoted in Beyonce’s Formation music video

[fyblackwomenart]

when he f*** me good i take his ass to red lobster by jenniferhom