No one ever said that Beyonce didn’t have it, but now the entire world is at her feet as she’s about to embark on a world tour with tickets selling on eBay for upwards of $500 because, yes, seeing a live Beyonce concert is worth that amount of money — maybe more.
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There is really no wondering why Beyonce is beloved, both commercially and critically, to a point of exhaustion. It is universally understood that she is the best performer performing right now, and look at the girl — she is maybe the only person alive to have an enviable pair of eyebrows, teeth, thighs, hips, and butt cheeks. (Also, her net worth is $40 million, she is happily married to Hovie Hov, Oprah recently called her “the preeminent mistress of the universe,” etc., etc., etc.)
So when we all sat down to watch her self-directed HBO documentary Life Is But a Dream, were we really expecting to see a private side of Bey, or were we expecting to see whatever Bey felt like showing us? Is it fair to criticize her for not being “relatable”? If she did give us more than the clichés on life and love and art and motherhood she doled out over the course of the 90-minute special, would it even have made much of a difference?
Beyonce is nothing like us. She knows that. She’s been a professional pop star for 16 years. One of the few things that does become clear while watching the documentary is that Beyonce identifies herself as an artist so strongly it might be the only way she knows how to identify herself.
Hank Steuver writes in his Washington Post review of the doc that “home videos from the 1990s of her Houston girlhood are swirled into the singer’s endless, present-day trips through back hallways, into and out of elevators, then into tinted-window SUVs…all of this leading to her most comfortable space, which is the high-wattage concert stage.”
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Beyonce is her most magical on stage. Complaints about how her documentary does not reveal anything about her life or about herself that we didn’t know maybe just reveals the fact that there is nothing extraordinary left to say.
We cannot say that Beyonce, as a person, is the most fascinating woman to ever live. We cannot say that listening to her speak about her extraordinary talent and her fame is as captivating as the extraordinary talent and fame itself.
But what we can say about Beyonce, unanimously, the entire country shouting together, is that nobody can put on a show like she can. No one can make being a woman look and feel sexier than Beyonce makes it look. And that is all that matters really.
I hope you’re always on top, Bey.
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Christina Drill is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. She co-edits the online zine Pieces of Cake and has a lot to say about celebs.
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