Beyoncé's Influence: Addressing Social Issues through Music

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Beyoncé is a very influential person in today’s society having over 87 million followers on Instagram, selling out 49 shows on her 2016 tour and playing the 50th Super Bowl this past year. Beyoncé released her song Formation in February a few days before the 50th Super bowl which she would perform as a half time show. With this major platform she takes the opportunity to discuss unjust problems that today’s society is facing such as police brutality, gender roles and beauty standards through this song. By using her music to convey these problems she is able to expose people to these problems they may not be socially aware of. The songs starts out by sampling a video by a man named Messy Mya. Messy Mya is quoted saying “What happened after …show more content…

Beyoncé implies that she is the dominant and more powerful one, Beyoncé has discussed her sex life on previous songs stating that girls are taught that they can not enjoy sex or be sexual beings in the way that boys are. By talking about her sex life she allows other girls to realize that it’s something they should not be ashamed of. Beyoncé later goes on to say “Drop him off at the mall, let him by some J’s” implying that she is not like other rappers wives who are simply just trophy wives, Beyoncé works extremely hard to make her own money having a net worth of 265 million dollars. Not only in popular culture is this the norm but also in many cultures around the world. Males are thought of as being the dominant and controlling one over his wife and family. In western society Women stayed at home to cook, clean and take care of the children, if a woman had a job she was frowned upon. This was normal until World War Two when the Men went off to war, in order to keep business’ going they hired women who proved that they could do it …show more content…

Society tells you what beautiful looks like, if you aren’t what they deem beautiful you may face low self-esteem and mental health issues. When women of colour are shown in the media it is most common with a weave because this is what society has made them insecure to wear their normal hairstyles. Beyoncé has been critiqued in the media multiple times for letting her daughter wear her natural hair. Beyoncé tells women of colour to embrace their features by stating “I love my baby, with baby hairs and afro”. Even if you are not a women of colour she is telling you to embrace who you are and to be proud of your family’s culture and

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