This is Bell Hooks on a panel speaking at Eugene Lang College.
If you fast-forward the video to 37.18, she and the other panelist began to discuss Beyonce. Bell Hooks describes Beyonce as a “super rich, very powerful, black female” and saying that she and team uses it “in service of imperialist, white supremacy, capitalist, patriarchy.” Janet Mock (The woman in the middle) contradicts Bell Hooks by saying she can't take aways Beyonce agency of having final cut approval, and being in charge of her own image/career. Then Bell Hooks countered her statement seeing it in a deconstructive point of view by saying she “colluding the construction of herself as a slave”. Marci Blackman (sitting on the far right side) chimes in by pointing out that “maybe she’s using the same images that were used against her and us, for so many years. She’s taking control in their saying ‘if y'all are going to make money off of it, so am I’.
Bell Hooks calls it a fantasy, that people like Beyonce think they reclaim the image for self-gain or profit. Bell Hooks quotes Audre Lorde, “The masters tools will never dismantle the masters house.” Hooks says that you cannot destroy the imperialist, capitalist, patriarchy by creating your own version of it.
