by
Black Girl With Long Hair
On the set of her upcoming film with actress Goldie Hawn (the details of which have yet to be released), Amy Schumer shot an entire video recreation of Beyonce’s Formation.
While some are calling it parody, it seems closer to a recreation considering Schumer kept the original music and lyrics (yes, “baby hair”, “hot sauce” and all), and incorporated a good chunk of the video’s original choreography. Also because parodies are supposed to be funny and witty and we’re not getting the joke here…
Native American women are at times substituted for the original shots of black women standing in formation…
…and there are shots of dozens of white/non-black women giving their best ‘slay poses’.
Formation is clearly an anthem for black women. Like, how much clearer can you BE when you resurrect the term “negro” and incorporate it into a pop song. Which begs the question, how callous and/or clueless must Schumer be to include a slow motion shot of Hawn’s very European nose, while the lyrics “Jackson 5 nostrils” play. Perhaps it proves that Schumer possesses the ability to make literally anything about her. Oh, and we’re side eyeing Wanda Sykes HEAVILY for her involvement.
But here is perhaps what’s worst of all. Beyonce approved this ish.
Yes, y’all… yes she did.
The video was released on Tidal, the music streaming company she co-owns with husband Jay-Z.
Black folks… are we so desperate to have white friends that we will co-sign mess like this?! Honestly I’m wondering…
Check it out below.
Predictably, black women were not amused…
https://twitter.com/olympiancrystal/status/790580894251692032
https://twitter.com/ReadingVixen/status/790531570423762944
https://twitter.com/macytweets2u/status/790408384340254720
https://twitter.com/hellahydrated/status/790394040923533312
https://twitter.com/lotuseatur/status/790072148811329536
*Sigh*
22 Responses
From my point of view it was a parody of sorts and indeed a non funny one at that. Remember when the ‘black people movement’ (I’m Dutch bear with me) lost its women to the (‘white’) women’s movement? This reminds me of that.
by “lost it’s women” do you mean when black women started demanding equality from black men?
I don’t think that this is racist. If anything, it’s disrespectful and Amy is doing exactly what every white person does. She’s ignoring the message of the song which is black struggles and making her own message to it. This isn;t anything new. White people never want anything to do with the struggles of black people. I watched reviews of Lemonade on youtube by people of different races and I noticed that caucasians usually didn’t review Formation because of it’s message. Smh
Ignoring the message of black struggles and making her own message to it? Disrespecting black people? That’s racism.
This reminds me alot of the incident of the white guy with locs being stopped by the Black woman at a University in the US. You get one person who screams Cultural Appropiation and then the whole ignorant white world assumes that we are all think the same thing. Wrong! The number of trolls who came on social media looking for an argument and had to walk away shame faced because we actually agreed with them for once. The situation was both funny and embarrasing. We are no different to any other so called ‘community’ in terms of having different views and opinions. Just like we all have different hair texture, colour and skin and I flatly refuse to be shoved in a box.
The manufactured outrage is what the article should be about. People do recreate videos all the time … The song states, “okay ladies, now let’s get in formation — she doesn’t specify a race of women to get in formation, which I think is information, which means to be INFORMED. Get information — get it? They were taking a break from filming and did this video. If anyone has been to a Beyonce concert there are ALL WALKS of life at her shows.
I see nothing wrong with this. I see women of diverse backgrounds. I don’t get it but I don’t find it disrespectful.
I’m not so much offended as I am confused by this video…???
Beyonce hustling. Paid off the appropriation
I just don’t get the outrage on this one.
We have alot of things to be angry about but this isnt one lol. Lighten up, I’m assuming Bey cosigned so if she isn’t mad why are some folks?!
She has too. I remember Weird Al Yankovic talking about Prince never allowing him to parody his songs. So if Bey is okay with it then they should be too.
We got other crap to worry about and THIS is what they want to highlight.
Okay, I’m willing to admit I’m old and slow but…although I don’t quite see what’s being parodied in this video, I’m guessing that if Tidal released it, then Jay-Z and ideally Beyonce are okay with it. I mean, they own Tidal, right? So it’s not like this would slip through without SOMEBODY in that organization directing Jay-Z and/or Beyonce to it. Because they’ve gotten this far doing pretty smart things, am I right? And with three recognizable faces (at least to my old eyes, and honestly I don’t know much about Amy Schumer) participating…they must know what they’re doing, right?
My point: Either they’re intentionally trolling — and as usual some folks took the bait — or they simply labeled it wrong by calling it a parody instead of, say, a reinterpretation or reimagining or performance art or something. Either way, this black woman isn’t getting worked up over this…
I don’t know what in the video qualifies as a parody. Words mean things and calling this -display a parody is an abuse of the language. Weird Al does parody. I don’t know what the hell this video is supposed to be but it does not qualify as parody.
Stop. We want acceptance and acknowledgement. We want the freedom to do our own things and be respected for it. What you are doing is the only thing that I see is wrong. You do not speak for all black people, and we do not all subscribe to this unyielding hate you are spewing. This parody video was not done in bad taste. It was clearly meant to poke fun at women in general, from a woman’s perspective. Remove yourself from this battle for racial ownership and de-facto supremacy, that was a war started by white supremacists, and perpetuated by the media that you subscribe to. We are better than that.
In other news, water is wet. Ladies stay gracious and keep your crown strong on your head.
Beyoncé needs to get slapped for this one.
No she doesn’t.
She sure does. How could she? This is a slap in the face to the black women that have supported her through the years.
I think Amy, Goldie, and even Beyonce need to sit down and listen to Solange’s “F.U.B.U” song. “This is for us, some shit you can’t touch”
How much money have YOU made off of it?
I think NappyHairDontCare was referring to how these songs were meant to be an anthem for people of color when she quoted Solange’s song. Having non POCs take this and call it parody while making a blatant copy is insensitive at best. There is nothing in this country that can be considered truly black or “for” black people because it’s always columbussed.