Having your work referenced by Beyoncé, an international superstar at the height of her game no less, has its pluses and minuses. Yes, your work immediately will be exposed to a vastly wider audience, but at the same time, you will likely reach a point when you insert clauses in interviews, insisting on no Beyoncé questions.
Such has been the case with award-winning author and feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, whose TED talk was excerpted in Beyonce’s song “***Flawless.” The event, according to Adichie in a interview with de Volkskrant, precipitated a period in which, “Literally every major newspaper in the world wanted to speak with me about Beyoncé.”
Until recently, Adichie has sidestepped all of the very many Beyoncé-related questions. but she finally spoke her mind to de Volkskrant, admitting that the very many inquiries connected with the pop-star’s impact on her worked her nerves, especially given her established body of work and credentials.
“I felt such a resentment. I thought: are books really that unimportant to you? Another thing I hated was that I read everywhere, now people finally know her, thanks to Beyoncé, or, she must be very grateful. I found that disappointing. I thought, I am a writer and I have been for some time and I refuse to perform in this charade that is now apparently expected of me, ‘Thanks to Beyoncé, my life will never be the same again.’ That’s why it didn’t speak about it much,” explained Adichie.
Adiche goes on to say though she appreciated the singer’s recent embrace of feminism, she said she views Beyoncé’s expression of the philosophy as different than hers. Explained Adiche, “Her type of feminism is not mine, as it is the kind that, at the same time, gives quite a lot of space to the necessity of men. I think men are lovely, but I don’t think that women should relate everything they do to men: did he hurt me, do I forgive him, did he put a ring on my finger? We women are so conditioned to relate everything to men. Put a group of women together and the conversation will eventually be about men. Put a group of men together and they will not talk about women at all, they will just talk about their own stuff. We women should spend about 20 per cent of our time on men, because it’s fun, but otherwise we should also be talking about our own stuff.”
And while there have been some Beyoncé fans who have taken issue with Adiche’s push back saying that her music should be viewed as a literal statement about her brand of feminism, the more important issue is the wisdom in what Adiche says.
If there could be a criticism, it’s that her statement comes across as highly hetero-normative, but with just a bit of tweaking it becomes a statement for all minorities, many of whom find themselves bogged down by processing the behaviors of members of the dominant culture.
