Much More Than Cheating

Beyonce's Lemonade speaks on the various topics that most people go through in a lifetime. In the visual album Beyonce starts with the topic of infidelity in the song "Pray You Catch Me". In the song she expresses that she can already feel him being dishonest to her about his whereabouts and that she prays he he will find her listening on conversations that he is having. In this song Beyonce is very vulnerable and shows that the person you love actions can really hurt you. But in her next song she regains this confidence where she confronts her man by saying,"Hold up, they don't love you like I love you. Slow down, they don't love you like I love you. .. Can't you see there's no other man above you?" Here she is telling him that these side girls do not love him as much as she does and that he is the only man in her life. These two songs show the various emotions someone can go through with one major event that rocks a relationship. First it's the sadness of your spouse cheating on you to the revenge that you seek when exposing him.

The best article on Beyonce's Lemonade is Ijeoma Oluo's Beyonce's Lemonade is about much more than Infidelity and Jay Z. In the article Oluo speaks about the struggles that black women have gone through the past centuries in History. "We are the women left behind. We are the women who have cared for other women’s children while ours were taken away. We are the women who march in the streets and are never marched for. We are the women expected to never air our grievances in public. We are the women expected to stay loyal to our men by staying silent through abuse and infidelity. We are the women who clean the blood of our men and boys from the streets. We are the women who gather their belongings from the police station." Here Oulo is stating that black women are silent not only in the world but in our own communities and homes. We are to stand behind our husbands and watch them and our children be killed. Black women never have time to think or take care of themselves because they are focus on their families more.

Dust to Side Chicks

Beyonce has always been an icon for many people. She makes music, acts at times, and performs. She came out with a video called "Lemonade" that was all about Race, Gender, Sexuality, and power. Beyonce also addressed infidelity on Jay-Z's part. The beginning of the Film starts off showing a bunch of African american women wearing white dresses from an older era. Beyonce is speaking quietly but powerful about women and about how she feels and speaking poetically. Throughout the video she goes through the different emotions a woman may feel when she finds out that her husband or significant other has cheated on her. Each performance is a different emotion and they go in order such as denial was one of the first emotions and acceptance was another one. She is talking about the way she is treated and yelling sometimes but other times she is speaking.

Beyonce is wearing outfits that, as usual, show off a significant amount of skin and show her acceptance of her sensuality. Beyonce has never been afraid to show off her skin in a video and she still isn't afraid. She expresses her feelings in a way that shows that she is strong and she will get revenge when she feels angry. Throughout she is seen as extremely beautiful but also aggressive. Women are usually not supposed to be aggressive or talk angrily, but beyonce does just that. She talks about his cheating and shows her crying and being upset, but she also shows her picking herself up and not caring about him. Society usually views women who don't care about things as being fake or unladylike but beyonce curses aggressively and sings about how much she doesn't care. Amani Shikhan wrote an article dedicated to "Lemonade" and she says "'Lemonade' is a lesson in skill and talent. In persistence. In boundaries and the complicated ways we try to hold onto love even when it isn’t there, when it lies dormant without stimulation. The baggage that becomes sustenance, the dirty rituals that keep us sane, the inheritance of the earth’s soil and its inhabitants who reject our every breath, our most human needs and desires. “Don’t hurt yourself,” she warns. 'Lemonade' isn’t for the weak or the thoughtless. Pour the lemonade from pitcher to pitcher, softly intertwining its components, Beyoncé’s soft voice over instructs. Give it time. Handle with care. Sip slow"(Amani Shikhan).

Towards the end of the video she brings in other women and she lets them talk to the camera. They are talking about how they do their hair and their nails and they have to look pretty. They are saying stereotypical things that women say. They are seen as being very uptight and caring very much about their appearance and what other people may think about the way that they look. Beyonce is at the end and doesn't have much makeup on and she is going through a cornfield and seeming very carefree which helps her come across as more powerful before. Throughout the film beyonce uses language and singing along with film techniques to make her point that she is a strong woman, she's proud of her skin color and she's proud of who she is.