Figurehead of the feminist revolution and pop queen Beyonce, has featured UFC champion fighter Ronda Rousey in her recent performance at Jay Z’s Made in America Festival.
The performance was her first of 2015, as the starlet has kept considerably quiet in recent times. She has not been interviewed since 2013, her Instagram pictures usually lack captions. This lack of contact with the media, and fans has even warranted a think piece by the NY times, who chalked it up to being a calculated approach in order to cultivate her desired image.
For a queen of the information age generation, Beyonce’s silence is distinctive. Perhaps that’s why the statements she makes in her live shows, such as the sample of Rousey’s speech, receive such wide coverage. It’s not unusual for an artist of her calibre to tweak their shows to deliver a message. What is unusual however, is that with Beyonce, her statement’s trigger widespread media coverage, and furthermore, deep thought from her intended audience.
Beyonce’s statements generally pertain to messages about female empowerment. You probably remember 2013’s Flawless, which featured novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s now famous Tedx speech on feminism. Rousey’s speech, sampled before Beyonce launches into Diva, runs in a similar vein, although with the same aggressiveness Rousey is is known for.
“I have this one term for the kind of woman that my mother raised me to not be and I call it a ‘do-nothin’ bitch,” she said. “Or I call it a DNB a lot of the time. The kinda chick that just tries to be pretty and be taken care of by somebody else. That’s why I think it’s hilarious — when people say my body looks masculine or something like that, I’m just like ‘listen, just because my body was developed for a purpose other than fucking millionaires doesn’t mean it’s masculine. I think it’s femininely badass as fuck because there’s not a single muscle in my body that isn’t for a purpose because I’m not a do-nothin’ bitch.’”
Beyonce has come under fire in the past for her version of ‘feminism’ indicating a flawless outer appearance, but with a sample like this, it’s evident she has a more rounded view than some of us give her credit for. Though the good woman/bad woman dichotomy that Rousey promotes is also problematic in itself.
Also, in case you missed it here’s Jay Z being adorable and singing his heart out at Bey’s concert: