Lemonade Film Analysis

Throughout the Lemonade movie, there is a continuous motif of spirituality that helps the artist communicate her messages. Beyoncé manages to include these religious themes from a variety of belief systems in her work with some help from elements of cinematography and qualified lyricists. By doing so, the artist targets a wider demographic as her audience and aims to be mostly understood by the entirety of her viewers.

One prominent culture embodied in the visual exclusive would be that of the Yoruba people in Nigeria and Benin. Beyoncé, due to her ancestry, is keen on putting forth the culture and religious beliefs of the Yoruba people. The artist therefore alludes to two Orishas of this religious system by the means of visual representation

While explaining how she tried to change for her lover to pay attention, the artist employs religious imagery to convey her feelings more naturally. For this purpose, she alludes to Christianity and Islam several times during the film, predominantly in Denial. The section opens up with Beyoncé evoking how she “fasted for sixty days” and “wore white”, both of which are practices of Islam. She then goes on to say “ameen”, the Arabic word for amen. In addition, the artist mentions that she “plugged [her] menses with pages from the Holy Book”, suggesting that she turned to God for relief from the pain she felt. As Beyoncé declares her methods of relieving the pain, she chooses to touch upon several different belief systems to ensure her despair is clearly understood by the viewer. The inclusiveness of the piece is pivotal for the artist due to the size of the audience she targets to reach, because it comprises followers of a myriad of beliefs that coexist on this planet. However, in her adaption of Warsan Shire’s poem “Grief Has Its Blue Hands In Her Hair” in Emptiness, Beyoncé replaces the Islamic word “Allah”, used as an exclamation and not to refer to the creator of the universe, with a vague and open-to-interpretation “Oh my God.” This is a concrete example proving how intolerant the society is of their aliens and how this xenophobia limits the creativity of

Nonetheless, it is necessary to comprehend these religious references before investigating them any further. During the narrated portion of Denial, the artist voices the line “I whipped my own back and asked for dominion at your feet”. Self-flagellation or whipping one’s own back is a form of worship practiced in Christianity since the 13th century. The first half of the sentence therefore addresses the practice and emphasizes the vulnerability of the artist, while the second half serves to bring about a controversy of patriarchal society. Beyoncé describes her situation in-depth and stripped-down here and builds the film up on this exposition to maximize the effect of her resurrection on the viewer. Abiding by the same method, the artist alters a biblical verse in Apathy to reveal her husband’s illicit inamorata. She changes “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” into “ashes to ashes, dust to sidechicks,” and applies a general deific punishment of humankind to her personal experience, thus allowing the audience to effortlessly relate to her. In short, Beyoncé takes a peculiar fragment of her private life to reflect on a broader issue of infidelity and trust that concerns the general public, and puts religion into use as a tool while doing