How to make Lemonade:
"“Take one pint of water, add a half-pound of sugar, the juice of eight lemons, the zest of half lemon. Pour the water into one, then to another several times. Strain through a clean napkin.
Grandmother. The alchemist. You spun gold out of this hard life, conjured beauty from the things left behind. Found healing where it did not live. Discovered the antidote in your own kitchen. Broke the curse with your own two hands.
You passed these instructions down to your daughter, who then passed them down to her daughter.”"
On April 23rd, 2016, Beyoncé released her new visual album titled "Lemonade" on HBO and, basically, sent the world into a frenzy. The visual album spoke Beyoncé's truth, and told a story through spoken word written by Black poet Warsan Shire, honest lyrics, and absolutely stunning cinematography. As a Black woman, this album speaks to me, and as a Black woman, Lemonade was made for me. Sure, there are universal themes that everyone can relate to, but there are specific themes and references that are made to specifically highlight The Black Woman.
"1,000 girls raise their arms."
Let's start off with the fact that there isn't a single non-Black woman in the short film. We watch Beyoncé go on this journey through intuition, denial, anger, apathy, loss, emptiness, accountability, reformation, forgiveness, resurrection, hope, and redemption, and the only people she is taking on that journey constantly are Black women. It's easy to become blinded by the story Beyoncé tells us of infidelity, but Lemonade is much more. Beyoncé is telling Black girls to love themselves by keeping us front and center throughout the short film.
"Am I jealous or crazy?... I'd rather be crazy"
One of my favorite moments is the denial scene. Beyoncé is gleefully swinging around a baseball bat, transcending the rhetoric of the angry Black woman. At this point in the short film, we are aware of the hardship Beyoncé is facing. In this moment, I saw myself. As a Black woman, our anger is never justified, and we shrink ourselves in order to not offend anyone. We hold our tongues out of fear of being crazy. "I tried to change. Closed my mouth more, tried to be softer, prettier, less awake." In this scene, Beyoncé is owning her anger, whether or not you think it's justified.
"If we're gonna heal, let it be glorious."
There is a certain amount of vulnerability I see in Beyoncé that, as a Black woman, I am just not supposed to be. Just as we are not supposed to be angry, we are not supposed to get hurt. We are symbols of strength, like our ancestors who came before us. We are survivors, and this is all true, but being strong is not the absence of showing weakness. We see this in Lemonade as we watch Beyoncé take her power back. If there was anything to take away, it's that he is not the sun, YOU are.
"I'ma keep running 'cause a winner don't quit on themselves"
Can we just talk about all the Black Girl Magic? Serena Williams, Zendaya, Amandla Stenberg, Winnie Harlow, Quvenzhané Wallis?!?! In an industry where Black women often have to conceal their Blackness in order to have broad appeal, this is truly an astounding, incredible, unbelievable moment, and as a young Black woman, it's amazing to witness it. I am so here for this theme of sisterhood and strength in just being exactly who you were born to be. Stenberg put it best when she tweeted: "Lemonade. Thank you @Beyonce for reminding us of our strength."
"So how we supposed to lead our children to the future? What do we do? How do we lead them? Love."
Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter. If I wasn't an absolute mess during Resurrection, while watching the mothers of slain men hold up a photograph of their loved one. Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Oscar Grant. This scene is clearly about these men, but it also about what was left behind: mourning women. These women had a part of their world taken away from them, and they will never get it back. There is a recurring theme of pain throughout the film, but Resurrection was really about that. These women keep the legacies alive. We carry this movement, and as we continue to see hardship and oppression from not only racism but a patriarchal society that will never protect us, we must remember this, "Nothing real can be threatened."
