While Beyonce's most recent video might seem like an innocuous ode to post-break-up female empowerment, beneath its riveting sexuality and supple skin lies an nefarious defense of the tyranny of traditional family forms. The synecdochic refrain that "if you like it than you should have put a ring on it" reaffirms Beyonce's commitment to a set of traditional gender roles for women, who, according to Beyonce, become a kind of property for their male counterparts only after the deployment of the institutionalist framework of marriage.
What’s more, the entire musical glorification of tradition is couched in a parallel aesthetic glorification of the bodily ideal that, in the very smoothness of its skin, the rhythm of its hips, the fullness of its lips, is forced into silence. The video achieves the absolute eradication of difference, as low-contrast lighting ensures that the actions of the three dancers truly becomes one.
Plus, that whole metallic hand thing is creepy.
Verdict:
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