Summer Film Highlight: Black Is King
Queen B has done it again! Attention BeeHive Nation: Beyoncé released her newest film “Black Is King” parallel to her song track from the live Disney movie, The Lion King. Now, if you have not had a chance to check it out, it is available on Disney+! It is also a doctor-recommended treatment to curing our end of summer blues. This may sound similar to Beyoncé’s release of Lemonade, which is another immaculate art piece and collection of her music. However, “Black is King” definitely boiled the water and turned it into wine this time.
Photo: Deadline
The color, the beauty, the culture, and especially the message is what I want to break apart and appreciate. Beyonce combined desert diamonds, the emerald city, and African American tribes in a flawless presentation that promotes Black culture. The film is a new source of Black media that changes perspectives and stereotypes of wealth, intelligence, strength, and confidence for Black culture, ultimately changing the traditional perspective that these qualities only exist in white culture, which is simply just not true. The film includes you in the conversation of humanity, respect, and agency for Black women and men. It constructs a glimpse into the pressures Black women face, and the anxieties of future daughters being raised in a new life or a changed life. The film also represents the parallel of the struggles of Black men and the pressures to succeed.
Photo: Harper’s Bazaar
As Beyoncé narrates throughout the film, the scenes fade into each other through bursts of red, green, purple, white, brown, and gold. The color palette that the film emphasizes represents all traditional African American palettes and we are a hundred percent for it! The film casts a powerful emerald wash throughout. This color represents wealth and can be compared to the emerald city from the Wizard of Oz. Purposefully, Beyoncé is showing that Black women and Black men are worthy. The extreme use of the emerald color, to me, combats many negative stereotypes of Black women and men not being civilized, beautiful, educated, or wealthy. Stereotypes are poisonous and Beyoncé makes that clear in the film when she represents the mixture of light and dark, good and evil, bad intentions, and good intentions, which can then connect to our societal disagreements on recent movements such as Black Lives Matter. The fight between what is right and what is wrong stems from confusion, and confusion is harmless, but being closed-minded is dangerous.
Photo: The New York Times
Beyoncé openly, and with no regrets, saved our summer with the release of this film because the messages are concrete for positive intentions on movements, culture, and humanity. The film will be ultimately memorable as a piece of artwork that not only emphasizes the true beauty of African American culture, but the true beauty that is Black women and men. This film is the new version of how humanity was created and I loved that the film dipped into the divine storytelling which casted Beyoncé as a spirit, a goddess, and once again, we are here for it a hundred percent. Beyoncé releasing this film gave us our hope back for humanity, in my belief. The amount of beauty and meaning is a breath of fresh air. It was perfectly aligned, choreographed, and pictured. Our anxieties finally were stabilized for more than thirty minutes, seeing as the film is an hour and a half, we are blessed that much longer. I can happily say that the inspiration taken from the film is astronomical and we bow down to Beyoncé in thanks and gratitude.