14 DAY TRIAL // Beyonce has been developing a taste for elaborate, lengthy and thought-provoking music videos in recent years, but no other she’s released so far can hold a candle to the latest, called “Yours and Mine” and released online some hours ago.
Technically, this isn’t a music video even though it does include some music samples and even footage previously shown on her other music videos: this is a short film in which Beyonce does her best to explain Beyonce to the rest of the world.
Whether she succeeds or not is entirely up to you to decide.
Who is Beyonce, the celebrity
The video starts off with a clear shot of the back of Beyonce’s head. Shot entirely in black and white, it’s meant as a moment the diva takes to look back on her life, her career and her public figure, and put it all in the balance against her personal life.
The beginning isn’t promising, because it sure sounds like Beyonce is falling into that much derided category of stars who constantly complain about how hard it is to be famous and how no one in their right mind would want it, if they knew what it entailed.
“I sometimes wish I could be anonymous walking down the street like everyone else,” Beyonce waxes poetical, before lamenting how hard it is for her to do the simplest things us mortals take for granted.
“I think it's the hardest thing to give up, but my mother always taught me to be strong and to never be a victim, never make excuses, never expect anyone else to provide me things that I know I can provide for myself. I have dreams and I feel like I have a power to actually make those dreams become a reality. When you're famous, no one looks at you as a human anymore. You become property of the public. There's nothing real about it,” she says.
No one knows who the real Beyonce is; not even Beyonce knows who Beyonce is anymore, she continues. So to get this out of the way, the singer starts explaining who she is, which are the parts that make up the total of her – and this is where things really start to get good.
Beyonce the wife, Beyonce the mother, Beyonce the woman
Halfway in the video, Beyonce starts talking about her personal beliefs and how she’s always identified as a feminist. Later on, she explains that she’s also a humanist, in the sense that the same empathy she has for women and the pressures on them, she has for men and the pressures they’re constantly under.
She talks about being a wife to rapper Jay Z and how having a “witness to your life” is something all of us should be as lucky as to experience and how marriage doesn’t mean you lose something of yourself, because you can be the best friend and companion for life.
Beyonce shares her thoughts on motherhood as well, and there are several clear shots of her daughter with Jay, Blue Ivy. We even hear her say “mamma” several times in a row.
The final act of the short film is a tribute to love no matter the shape it manifests itself: love of family, love of friends, love of parents or love of a significant other. As somber and serious as the video was during Beyonce’s speech on equality and human rights, as uplifting and joyous it is here.
Say what you will about Beyonce, but she sure knows how to make a splash with whatever she does. And that’s why they call her Queen Bee.
