From slavery to the present, black female bodies have been bought and sold. What makes this commodification different in Lemonade is intent – its purpose is to seduce
"As a grown black woman who believes in the manifesto 'Girl, get your money straight' my first response to Beyoncé’s visual album, Lemonade, was WOW – this is the business of capitalist money-making at its best. Viewers who like to suggest Lemonade was created solely or primarily for black female audiences are missing the point. Commodities, irrespective of their subject matter, are made, produced and marketed to entice any and all consumers. Beyoncé’s audience is the world, and that world of business and money-making has no color.
... Lemonade offers viewers a visual extravaganza – a display of black female bodies that transgresses all boundaries. It’s all about the body, and the body as commodity. This is certainly not radical or revolutionary. From slavery to the present day, black female bodies, clothed and unclothed, have been bought and sold.
... It is the broad scope of Lemonade’s visual landscape that makes it so distinctive – the construction of a powerfully symbolic black female sisterhood that resists invisibility, that refuses to be silent. This in and of itself is no small feat – it shifts the gaze of white mainstream culture. It challenges us all to look anew, to radically revision how we see the black female body.
However, this radical repositioning of black female images does not truly overshadow or change conventional sexist constructions of black female identity."
