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From the start, Beyonce preaches her desire to create a safe space.
But what exactly is she referring to?
The onslaught of death and illness brought on by the continuing pandemic?
The lawsaimed at criminalizingtrans children and adults?
The rising misogyny, homophobia, and anti-Blackness that leads to grave violence?
The various, ongoing genocides?
Every time you think youve seen behind the curtain, you realize theres another curtain upon another stage.
This isnt new for her.
Consider previous projects like the labored 2013 filmLife Is But a Dreamand the more successfully realizedHomecomingin 2019.
It isnt even when she has knee surgery, a moment carefully documented on camera.
It feels particularly powerful in the ways costuming and editing meet.
Beyonce focuses on her singing more than her dancing, which, compared to previous tours, feels subdued.
But this tour is anything but simple.
These are not intimate shows but a demonstration of excessive spectacle.
Being a Black woman … its always a fight.
We have to take her word for it.
Motherhood is another angle thatRenaissancereturns to again and again.
Yet it is how Beyonce sees herself as a mother to her actual children that most interests me.
In her ploys toward relatability, her greatest advantage is how she utilizes her blood kin.
The next scene shows her calmly tucking her children in to sleep on a private jet.
He was instrumental in not only raising the Knowles children but in crafting the early costumes of Destinys Child.
Though Johnny died ofAIDS complications, you wont learn that fromRenaissance.
But this is by design.
For there is no star of such magnitude who more cunningly positions themselves as apolitical than Beyonce.
Her performance as an icon is meant to connect with the broadest number of people possible.
With Formation from 2016sLemonade, Beyonce alchemized the aesthetics of Black radicalism.
Her apoliticism should not slide by.
Beyonce has yet to make a statement about Palestine.
But this silence is itself a statement.
Black musical traditions may have the potential for radicalism, but Beyonces neutrality demonstrates they arent inherently that way.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated what album Formation was on.
