my housemate sent me this article by bruce la bruce many months ago - wondering why beyonce doesn't matter- and i just read it now. the conversation/moment has been and gone, of course. timeliness is everything in the land of blog. but since i'm not properly inhabiting such spaces, and because i resent such timeliness, i'm going to respond now, late in the day. today i'm writíng a letter to bruce.
dear Bruce,
firstly, thank you for making interesting films that i've enjoyed over the years. i particularly enjoyed Otto and Raspberry Reich. thank you for making films that are queer, political, and pornographic - this is most refreshing. though i'm sorry you made LA Zombie, which didn't interest me on any of these levels.
i just read your Vice article on Beyoncé which, like LA Zombie, is not your best work. the article was very negative to Beyoncé's music and fans, and i don't think that's particularly useful to feminism, hip-hop, or queer politics. your derision of her (and more so, her oeuvre) was executed through comparison to Other Black Women in music - those more deserving of attention, apparently. yet, isn't this the most simple and benign way to argue that someone doesn't matter? i could say that you don't matter because queer-boy cinema has Todd Haynes, François Ozon, and John Cameron Mitchell. but i wouldn't, because the more queer cinema the better, and the richer the conversation can be.
this comparative argument is also anti-alliance. instead of asking how beyoncé's oeuvre might gel with those of the other women you mention (and vice versa), you seek only to contrast, isolate, and negate. and what does it do to suggest that space for black, female performers is a limited and competitive one?
might it also be more useful to consider how Beyoncé's work is enjoyed, and how it incorporates feminist statements and symbols? might feminism (or pop music and its listeners) be more complex than you suggest? i'd hope so.
the politics of 'derision through comparison' that you employ here is a problem because it's about saying no (to Beyoncé, or whoever the straw woman might be today). it's the politics of negation, silencing, and enforced choice. is there only room for a few handpicked, authentic, black female performers? it seems so, because you encourage us to choose Gwen Verdon, Sheree North, Ann Millerand, early Janet Jackson, En Vogue, Roxanne Shante or Bytches with Problems over Beyoncé. your Marxist beliefs might be put to better use by refusing such choice-making that ties us to a false economy of best/greatest/#1. because choice is not so necessary and pop music need not be graded, measured and restricted. again, there is room for many expressions here (and many engagements with many such expressions). you're welcome to enjoy whatever you like, of course, but i'd rather you didn't try to put limits on what i enjoy. it would be nice, too, if you didn't presume why others enjoy such things as Beyoncé's music, and how this represents some sort of cultural decline.
and perhaps you might not presume that there are distinct, obvious, and universal values for measuring pop music (and feminism).
and lastly, citing pop lyrics as evidence that pop music is heteronormative and sexist is the oldest trick in the book. any pop music listener knows there's more going on here than words (as though the song were confined to a page). lyrics aren't simple expressions of a singer's values, politics, or ideologies; words are devices for telling stories. Beyoncé is a story-teller, as her Sasha Fierce identity suggests. her stories are not hers alone, and perhaps they are more about us. that her product is successful is not because she made it successful, it's because we did. so maybe it could be said that Beyoncé doesn't matter after all, but i don't think you're saying this. you might try to, but your argument (in which Beyoncé matters) betrays your claim (that she doesn't).
for me, i'd say that Beyoncé matters. because in walking home tonight she whispered this in my ear:
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