TAKE OR MAKE A POSITION! Position 1: “The first image we see of Beyoncé, in her 2016 released video for her song “Formation,” is the pop star atop a New Orleans police car, partly submerged in flood water. At once invoking the tragedy of post-Katrina devastation and police brutality—both extensions of state violence against black lives—Beyoncé strategically positions her body, clad in a country-style red dress (a power of color, of life and bloodlines), at the crossroads between life and death.” -from Janell Hobson’s Beyoncé as Conjure Woman: Reclaiming the Magic of Black Lives (That) Matter in ms magazine. http://msmagazine.com/blog/2016/02/08/beyonce-as-conjure-woman-reclaiming-the-magic-of-black-lives-that-matter/ Position 2: “Our obsession with Black celebrity–and our need to defend it–is undermining our movement.” -from Amanda H’s My (Apparently) Obligatory Response To ‘Formation’: in List Form on Radical Faggot: Black Knowledge/Queer Justice. http://radfag.com After watching Beyoncé’s “Formation” and sorting through the compelling and in some cases contradictory narrative(s) of the performance, please read the following two reviews by Janell Hobson on the ms magazine blog and “Amanda H” on the Radical Faggot: Black Knowledge/Queer Justice blog. Your charge is to argue for one (or both) of these positions. While Hobson locates Beyoncé in a tradition of African-American pop-artists who uncover black female oppression and work to empower both, Amanda H views Beyoncé’s work and cannon in a different cultural context arguing that Beyoncé coopts radical African American queer and feminist cultural forms and in so doing, diverts a growing radical grassroots movement for change. Do you agree with one argument or find that both have elements of arguable truth, or would you like to make a third argument that deviates from both of these polarities? Whether you argue that Formation is a liberatory expression of Black womanhood and LGBT/Q + expression or that it co-opts and capitalizes on African-American female/femme and trans bodies and culture, there are three criteria that you will include in your paper of argument: 1) You will state your argument/position clearly into the introduction; 2) You will quote from the lyrics at least once during the article, 3) You will describe some aspect of the setting, the cinematography, choreography and/or composition of the music video; 4) You will describe some aspect of the music itself 5) You will use either or both of the articles at least once in the body of your paper as evidence for your original argument.