This ought to put to rest; all jokes, parodies, and jabs at Beyonce’s diction, dialect, and grammar-when what ends up [mattering after all? / at the end of the day]; is that there is a class being offered on studying you at the likes of an accredited college.
She’s #winning
Seems as though the critically acclaimed, brazen, symbolic and overtly sexual album under constant scrutiny that Beyonce dropped by surprise this past December 13 [2013], has actually left much to the imagination such that Rutgers felt it deserved to be studied for class credit in a course titled “Politicizing Beyonce.”
The New Jersey college course premise (taught by PhD student lecturer for the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at New Brunswick College: Kevin Allred), compares Beyonce’s lyrics to the black feminist movement while it explores her control over her control over her image, explores American race, gender, and sexual politics.
In an interview Allred did for the college newspaper, he makes it clear: “This isn’t a course about Beyonce’s political engagement or how many times she’s performed during President Obama’s inauguration weekend.”
Instead, the curriculum with compare and contrast the singer’s lyrics to the black feminist movement, with the writings of Alice Walker (Color Purple), and abolitionist Sojourner Truth while in the interim; exploring Beyonce’s control over her own “aesthetic and image.”
Allread explains: “While other artists are simply releasing music, she’ creating a grand narrative around her life, her career, and her persona. It’s important to shift students away from simply being consumers of media, toward thinking more critically about what they are engaging on a regular basis.”
I, for one, found this information interesting-not to mention: ironic-because wayyy back in January 2013, I too, started in on a piece (which ironically-began with Beyonce and Allred’s same premise about her). However, my write up (beginning with Beyonce) was about the industry as a whole (from the/my personal journalism standpoint) all the way down to the industry perceptions, misconceptions, thinking and consumer thinking-and how now that industry flood gates are opened as such, what has to be understood and done so that we not lose respect for artistry and talent simply because a way has been made [that could very well make that extinct if we’re not careful with what’s being constantly put in front of us by the media simply because the labor is cheaper and there is a market and way for it]. It was critical thinking piece that I wrote on my personal blog. Feel free to read it-it’s pretty extensive, however. (But be sure to read this, my blog write-up on this will help you better understand what it is was saying in my personal blog/critical thinking piece that began with her).
Don’t think that Beyonce was selected for study on this course simply based on her popularity [exclusively]. Bruce Springsteen’s works are examined in a theology course at Rutgers as well. In the past, the likes of Tupac and countless other entertainers have been selected at various accredited colleges to be studied in certain “ology” courses and courses dealing with gender, social politics, and sociology.
Some artists (like the Beyonce’s and Springsteen’s), when they’ve reached a certain plateau in their career, and the public / media begins to either look at them a certain way, or they are out there a certain way [in which an overwhelming response to their celebrity is at the forefront]; often times, their social influence just begs to be studied-so that you can step aside from the glitz, blitz, and glamour to dissect what’s really going on and what very well may be just “glitter” (which is what my write-up was about) and too, sort of like what the premise of these types of classes are like.
Should be interesting.
Wish I was there.
At any rate.
Enjoy 🙂
Eye Spied THR via Michele Amabile Angermiller
