our mother's mother's beyonce

"Why Don't You Love Me" - Beyoncé from Beyoncé on Vimeo.


In her latest video, "Why Don't You Love Me," Beyonce and the video's director Melinda Matsoukas (an NYU film grad with a host of other music videos under her belt) do the sixties, which seems like a popular thing to do these days. With TV series like Mad Men, films like An Education and several designers (Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton and Prada this past season) who have designed sixties inspired collections in the past couple seasons, the sixties seem to be an era that is of interest to the current moment.

While these examples highlight the sixties as a specific stylistic moment, this era is also understood as period of uncomfortable change at a variety of levels. This video, as a representation of this time period, caused me to think about the lack of representations of  black women on television and in films during this period, especially because of the explicit and implicit references used, like Daisy Duke or music icons like Diana Ross. I see this video as a stand-in or perhaps a nostalgic look at a time when black women weren't represented in this way. By this I mean, there may be something redemptive about it. Perhaps it works to represent what was invisible during that period.

I draw this conclusion because despite the fact that there weren't representations of black women like this in the sixties, this imagery is strangely familiar. The ways in which black women of this period worked to keep a household, raise children and secure a loving and supportive partner are part of a very familiar narrative about this era. I recognize this narrative from stories told in my family about my grandmothers as well as from popular music and literature from this time.

Also, as in keeping with nostalgic representations, I think the imagery and themes represented in the video are relevant to today. Despite the dual and conflicting images of the "strong black women" and "the single black women," how, if at all, despite the gains made since this time period, are these existential demons that we are still wrestling with?