Beyoncé sure knows how to get our attention.
She’s done it again and again with her culture-stopping music, videos and and performances.
All The Single Ladies, which launched countless YouTube videos of toddlers dancing and one infamous Kanye West tirade. Or, how about when she asked “Who run the world?” (The answer: girls – a theme she would return to again and again). Striding out at the 2014 VMAs flanked by the giant word “FEMINIST.”
Other significant moments: Her 2013 self-titled visual album, stealth-dropped in late December and instantly required listening and viewing. Also, the revelation that was “Formation.” And her 2016 Superbowl performance (very popular with conservatives). Lemonade, the album that launched a thousand thinkpieces about her politics and identity (sample headline: “Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’ Is an Anthem for the Retribution of Black Women.”)
Then, earlier this week, she added her announcement via Instagram – bedecked in flowers, a veil and her glorious fecundity – that she is pregnant with twins.
Predictably, the Internet went bananas. Her post zoomed to most-liked-ever status inside a day. Twitter was beside itself with bee emojis and “YASSS QUEEEN” updates. The joy was palpable.
Joy — and relief. Because, man did we ever need some good news.
It has been a rough few weeks in the news cycle (for people who care about democracy and due process and the welfare of their fellow humans).
A breathless pace of executive orders attacking the environment, women, refugees, lawful visa-holders and US parks employees has led to record-breaking protests, an unrelenting call-your-Senator schedule and Jon Stewart channelling just how exhausted we all are. So we really, really needed something to feel good about.
Beyoncé delivered that to us with her announcement, which was styled with the kind of bravado, exuberance and confidence that even a dude who lives in a solid-gold tower could never get away with. And she doubled down on it with a collection of photographs so resplendently gorgeous and near-otherworldly (I mean, just look at this one and this one, and this one) that it actually succeeded in not just distracting us from the dark craziness swirling around the country, but transporting us completely, if momentarily, into another (happier) world.
This is classic Beyoncé. Beyoncé, who flagrantly loves her body and demands that you respect it, now reminds us that it’s a body that can march like a boss in heels but also swell with life and hope, sexy and powerful in all its forms. (And she does it while sitting on a throne of flowers, lest you forget she is the Queen.)
It is possible, of course, for Beyoncé’s pregnancy to exist without reference to Donald Trump. He doesn’t get to be part of every story, even as he barges into our every waking moment with new acts of cruelty or rule-flouting or self-aggrandizement or jaw-dropping ignorance. Even so, it’s hard not to see a juxtaposition here. Trump’s administration has focused on restricting, undoing, and upending. But Beyoncé is creating.
That was the theme of her photo collection. Called “I Have Three Hearts,” it was paired with a poem of the same name by the Somalian poet Warsan Shire, who also wrote the poetry in Lemonade — and who, I guess, would not be allowed to enter the United States.
It reads: “There’s life growing inside of me and I’m beside myself with dreams.” In a real and visceral way, Beyoncé has reminded us that even in times that feel broken, we are vessels of power and glory and hope.
Is what I am saying over the top here? Maybe, but I found those images coupled with that poem to be profoundly moving as a mother and a feminist and, well, a human. I will leave the smart thinkpieces about the poem to other writers, (I’m looking at you, Melissa Harris-Perry) but one line in particular stands out to me: “Flowers grow wherever.”
Flowers grow wherever. When the books are written about this period in time, I believe that will be an enduring theme — the hope that sprang up out of the chaos, and the real and visceral good that it created. Beyoncé just named it. Creators gonna create.