1. Partition and Flawless - Beyonce – 2014 MTV VMA Performance
Get More: 2014 VMA, Artists.MTV, Beyoncé, MTV VMA Video Vanguard (Medley), Music, More Music Videos
I cannot start this analysis without first discussing Beyonce. She has been the subject for a great deal of both criticism and praise this year regarding her style of feminism. But, regardless, she is a proud and open feminist. This video is a live performance from the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards, and while the entire thing is incredible, I would like to focus on a specific part – starting at 9:15 and ending at 11:23. While technically the part encompasses two individual songs – Partition and Flawless - because they are not the full songs I am going to treat them as one. The entirety of this performance is over sixteen minutes long, and covers parts of every song on her most recent album. The particular ordering of her songs, and these two especially, is significant. Beyonce’s Partition begins to play at the 9:15 mark – focusing solely on the visuals, her curvaceous body is silhouetted, immediately sending a very sexual message. Then she struts to a pole, grabs it, and starts dancing very sexually. The lyrics to the song themselves revolve around pleasing her man sexually in the backseat of a limo. She states, “driver roll up the partition please / I don’t want you seeing ‘Yonce on her knees” and, addressing her significant other, continues, “I just wanna be the girl you like / take all of me.” These lyrics seem, on the surface, to be the opposite of feminist. She indicates that she would change for her man, and wants to please him. Yet, Beyonce has stood by her version of feminism as, well, being a feminist but also having a family and loving her husband. On top of this, Beyonce is actually already subverting the narrow ideas of women in pop music, in that typical pop songs "deny or repress sexuality" (Frith & Robbie 380). And, if anyone watching thinks, “well, Beyonce really isn’t being feminist in this portion of her performance,” those thoughts are definitely shoved aside as Partition transitions out, and Flawless transitions in.
Starting at 10:26, one of Beyonce’s more traditionally feminist songs, Flawless, begins. While the lyrics that Beyonce sings themselves may not seem very feminist, “I know when you were little girls / You dreamt of being in my world / Don’t forget it, don’t forget it / Respect that / Bow down bitches,” Beyonce inserted sound bites from Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk that are very clearly feminist. The parts of the speech that Beyonce included in her VMA performance are “we teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are / we teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller / we say to girls, “you can have ambition, but not too much, you should aim to be successful, but not too successful otherwise you will threaten the man / feminist: the person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.” In the performance, these words are not only spoken as they are in the song, but they are flashed on the screen and the word feminist displays for a substantial amount of time and Beyonce steps in front of it and proudly and publicly associates herself with the word. Stacking this right after Partition, Beyonce is not only making the claim that she is feminist, but that in being feminist she can also want to please her man, and that these are not mutually exclusive ideas. Beyonce can be married, love her husband, and have a child, and still be a feminist, and she is making that very, very clear.
2. Hard Out Here - Lily Allen
Lily Allen has never been one to sugar coat things. She’s consistently made splashes through her music, and her most recent album release did not fail. The song and accompanying music video for “Hard Out Here” caused quite a stir. Throughout the lyrics of the song she refers to herself (and other women) as “a bitch.” In fact, the title comes from the chorus, “It’s hard out here for a bitch.” She sings about the double standard women face, “if I told you ‘bout my sex life, you’d call me a slut / when boys be talking bout their bitches, no one’s making a fuss,” she sings about the pressures society puts on women, “if you’re not a size six, then you’re not good looking / well, you better be rich, or be real good at cooking / you sould probably lose some weight ‘cause we can’t see your bones / you should probably fix your face or you’ll end up on your own.” Though her lyrics are very clearly feminist, Lily Allen’s use of satire in her music video packs an even stronger punch. The video opens up with her receiving liposuction and her agent and her doctors judging her. Her (male) agent asks “how does somebody let themselves get like this” and a (male) doctor responds with, “it’s the lack of self-discipline I suppose,” to which Allen seemingly helplessly responds, “um I had two babies!” It doesn’t matter why she’s too large for society’s standards, because she just shouldn’t have let herself go. In the video she learns how to properly shake her butt by her agent’s standard, she seductively cleans tire rims, seductively eats a banana, and rubs her butt against a car. Allen’s version of feminism is one of advocating openly for equal rights without fear of alienation – she’s indelicate with her lyrics and her video in making her point, and it’s hilarious and poignant.
3. Q.U.E.E.N – Janelle Monae feat. Erykah Badu
While Janelle Monae has been known for her androgyny, her most recent album ‘Electric Lady’ is full of girl-power tunes. In Q.U.E.E.N, Monae focuses on empowering women to be themselves, accept themselves, and fight for their own equality. In one of her verses she asks the questions “Am I a freak for dancing around? / And am I weird to dance alone late at night? / And is it true that we’re all insane?” She is referring to herself, but also to women as a whole. Constantly women are deemed “crazy” – yet in the final line of the verse, Monae rejects this, “And I just tell ‘em, ‘No we ain’t,’ and get down.” Although she refers to herself throughout the song “Hey sister am I good enough for your heaven? . Say will your God accept me in black and white / Will he approve the way I’m made? / Or should I reprogram the program and get down?” she is actually touching on women as a whole and their insecurities. She again knocks this idea aside and emphasizes her (and women's in general) individuality, “Even if it makes others uncomfortable / I wanna love who I am.” Monae is expressing her feminism in the form of self acceptance and self-love, but more so, during the rap at the end of the song, is encouraging women to stand up and fight no matter how many times they are knocked down. “Add us to equations but they’ll never make us equal / she who writes the movie owns the script and the sequel / so why ain’t the stealing of my rights made illegal? / they keep us underground working hard for the greedy / but when it’s time pay they turn around and call us needy.” Monae touches on the inequality that women face in the workforce, and the stigma that we face as “needy” females. She then continues the empowering rap, stating that no matter how many times she’s knocked down, or her “wings” are “taken,” she will still fight: “Well I’m gonna keep leading like a young Harriet Tubman / You can take my wings but I’m still goin’ fly” Finally, Monae ends with a call to action for women, who she deems as ‘electric ladies’ - “We rising up now / you gotta deal you gotta cope / will you be electric sheep? / electric ladies, will you sleep? / or will you preach?” Monae isn’t just singing about equality, defining her version of feminism, or even satirizing it – she is attempting to mobilize women to fight for their rights, for the ‘electric ladies’ to ‘preach.’
4. Secrets – Mary Lambert
While Mary Lambert’s song Secrets is not explicitly about feminism, as she includes men and women in her music video, the song’s underlying message is directed toward women. She sings in the pre-chorus, “they tell us from the time we’re young / to hide the things that we don’t like about ourselves / inside ourselves / I know I’m not the only one who spent so long attempting to be someone else / well I’m over it.” In the verse she lists all of her “secrets,” which include that she’s overweight, she’s bi-polar, she’s gay, she’s passive aggressive, and she loves her butt. These are things that she has been conditioned to keep under wraps and thus she is encouraging girls and women not only to accept themselves regardless of what society says, but to shout out their “secrets” for everyone to hear. Much like Monae, Lambert is empowering women through self-love and self-acceptance. The music video adds to this, as Lambert’s face sings sweetly through the first verse, with a demure smile on her face. She is proud of her flaws and her “secrets,” and we should smile through our self-acceptance.
5. Bo$$ - Fifth Harmony
Unlike Beyonce, the five powerhouses of the all-girl group Fifth Harmony sing about their lack of a need for a man. They also sing of their desire for hard work, their appreciation of the hard work of other smart and powerful women, and their demand for respect. They sing “You say that you a baller / and I see you tryna holla / But that ain’t how I was brought up / Next. / Working for the money / ‘Cause that’s what my momma taught me / So yo ass better show me some respect.” In the chorus they name drop Michelle Obama and Oprah as bosses. The usage of the word “boss” is very significant – Nicki Minaj, in a past interview, said “When I’m assertive, I’m a bitch. When a man is assertive, he’s a boss.” Fifth Harmony is commenting on this double standard, and the idea that women can be bosses too. In the next verse, they spell out the word confident, and then follow up with “Don’t want yo compliments / use common sense” and “Boy I think you know who run this house / I ain’t thirsty for no bae.” They are clearly stating that they do not need, nor do they want, a man (the ‘bae’ in this situation), especially because they are the ones running things “in this house.” Much like Monae, they feature a call to action in their song, “I pledge allegiance to my independent girls in here / Oh baby / So if you’re with us, come on let me hear you say / yeah.” In addressing their female audience as “independent girls” and asking them to associate with this idea of being a boss, they are encouraging and empowering their audience to “work for the money,” demand respect, and define themselves without thinking of men. The music video adds to their idea of feminism equaling hard work and “bossness,” as the video opens up with the phrase “Think like a boss,” cuts to the girls of Fifth Harmony in a powerful stance, then cuts to the quote “Dreams don’t work unless you do,” cuts again to a different powerful stance but now wearing white blazers and shorts, cuts to “Find yourself, and be that.” They’re doling out this advice to all of their female fans who may need encouragement in being themselves and being independent. Later in the video, each girl competes in an arm wrestling competition with a man, the girls win every time. This is emphasizing their strength, ability, and power in being a “boss.” One of my favorite parts of this song is that it is sung by five girls. Not since Spice Girls have we seen an all girl group make a splash, and this group is using their voice to do good. While I can't say whether or not Fifth Harmony inspires "teenybopper" fans, just the idea of a group of girls fawning over another group of girls and appreciating them for their empowering ideals is attractive to me. Simon Frith and Margot Robbie discuss the collective identity that music gives girls a chance to express - that "A live pop concert is, then, a landmark among their leisure activities" (381). Fifth Harmony is extremely popular among girls, and even just the simple idea of girls celebrating and enjoying their girl power by attending a pop concert where a girl group is performing makes me elated.
6. Cinderella – The Cheetah Girls
This song holds a particular place in my heart. I believe this was the first feminist song, and maybe even feminist ideal, that I identified with at the most extreme. The Cheetah Girls movie was released on Disney Channel when I was 10, and I was obsessed with this song. I loved the lyrics and I loved the meaning, and I loved that I felt empowered when I sang it. The lyrics are simple, but they needed to be so young girls could understand this idea of empowerment and being independent. The song starts out in a very relatable fashion, with a story about being told stories as a young girl, “It always was about a princess in distress / and how a guy would save her / and end up with the glory. / I’d lie in bed / and think about / the person that I wanted to be, / Then one day I realized / the fairy tale life wasn’t for me.” The Cheetah Girls decided that they didn’t want to be Cinderella – they didn’t want to have to be saved by some prince and be powerless in their life. They wanted to be strong and powerful and capable of saving themselves. In the chorus they sing “I don’t wanna be like Cinderella / Sitting in a dark, cold, dusty cellar / waiting for somebody to come and set me free” and “Don’t wanna depend on no one else / I’d rather rescue myself.” The lyrics are clear and simple – Cinderella was helpless, and we don’t want to be. They then dream of falling in love with a man “who’s not afraid to show that he loves me / somebody who will understand I’m happy just the way I am / Don’t need nobody taking care of me / I will be there fore him just a strong as he will be there for me / when I give myself then it has got to be an equal thing.” While this is similar to Beyonce’s idea of being able to be in love and please her man while still maintaining her feminist ideals, the Cheetahs sing about wanting to find this man in the future, being able to fall in love with someone who understands and appreciates their strength. The last verse is the most empowering part of the song, “I can slay my own dragons / I can dream my own dreams / My knight in shining armor is me / So I’m gonna set me free.” As I was a young girl when this song came out, I can verify that this was an empowering song for young girls around the country. Suddenly we weren’t desiring Prince Charmings, we were becoming more and more confident in ourselves, in the idea that we could be independent. My friends and I would dress up in colorful outfits and perform this song around the house – hell, we even performed this at a cantina our parents frequented. This was our anthem. This was teaching us that we could slay our own dragons, and we could depend on ourselves. This song, unlike the rest, is the most clear in its lyrics and in it’s messaging. But, as I mentioned, it needed to be, as the target audience was girls aged 6 to 16. This feminism is empowerment and strength, and much like Fifth Harmony, the irrelevance of the man in a woman’s life.
