False prophets

So well-trained are we by capitalist/neoliberal ideology that our heroes have become the rich and famous. Some of my friends on Facebook follow people like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. I know this because their “likes” on these billionaires’ posts have come in my news feed. There is nothing wrong in following updates from wealthy, privileged people; I follow some famous people myself. What I think matters is what we admire in these figures.

When someone offers their well wishes, they will often mention health, happiness, and prosperity. The last element has a clear link to money. As we drift farther away from Judeo-Christian beliefs, the words “the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10) no longer apply. And the resultant void must be filled by something. For many, this is consumerism and material aspiration.

So, when I see people looking up to those who are winning the capitalist game, it doesn’t surprise me. One example is Beyoncé. Destiny’s Child was a fantastic group, and while they used their bodies, the focus was always on their music.

Solo Beyoncé of the 2000s was similar, and her music was still the focus (“Crazy in Love,” “Halo,” etc.).

But something seemed to happen in the 2010s that signalled a slightly different trajectory.

This image is from the filming of the video for “Drunk in Love” (2013). The song was a big international hit. What people saw in it, I don’t know. The video bothered me because, for the first time, I saw this performer’s physical appearance being placed above her talent as a singer. And while Beyoncé may be a powerful woman with full control over her career and her image, that doesn’t necessarily make her a feminist icon. After all, the rules are different for Jay-Z in the video. Where is his bathing suit? Why is he wearing a shirt? Is this some topsy-turvy world where he’s the object and the object gets to be fully clothed?

To her credit, I would say that Beyoncé has challenged the Western concept of beauty that has traditionally only valued white women. Moreover, I’m not opposed to a woman using her sexuality to draw attention to the fact that women are indeed sexual beings, and I think she has done this well. But one should not forget that Beyoncé is an instrumental part of the capitalist system. So, when she uses feminism as part of her branding, I think we should take her with a grain of salt. I know a lot of women disagree with me. Like eminent scholar bell hooks, I may be perceived as an aunty who doesn’t get millennials. But those of us from previous generations do get it: millennials come from a world in which they have only ever known globalization and neoliberalism.

Many argue that Beyoncé’s latest album, Lemonade, is a seminal feminist album and a gift to Black women.

I can see that this is largely true of “Formation,” but when I read the lyrics to the other songs on the album, I saw a narrative from the perspective of a woman in a heterosexual relationship. Clearly, this resonates, as article after article and tweet after tweet are being written about it and bell hooks has been harshly criticized for critiquing it. But hooks was right, in my opinion, in highlighting that Beyoncé’s brand of feminism doesn’t challenge patriarchy. So, then, from a feminist perspective, what does it achieve? It doesn’t appear as though Bey has moved much farther beyond where she was in 2014, when she wrote an op-ed telling us what we already knew: that gender equality is a myth and that women continue to earn less than men.

This could very well be millennial feminism—expressions of choice, desire, and individuality that make women feel empowered, but offer no means of challenging the systems that are in place. That ideology seems compatible with the contemporary world, where a few corporations own everything and our governments work for them, not us; where people are working overtime for no extra pay and are carrying massive debt; where a new iPhone comes out every six months and it’s exactly the same as the previous iPhone, but costs more, and people line up outside the Apple Store overnight to be the first ones to buy it.

Speaking of which, Apple CEO Tim Cook is in India right now to cut some business deals.

I remember when Cook wrote his own op-ed in 2014 to come out publicly. He wrote that being gay had “provided a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with every day” and had made him “more empathetic.” He also underlined the following:

there are laws on the books in a majority of [U.S.] states that allow employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation. There are many places where landlords can evict tenants for being gay, or where we can be barred from visiting sick partners and sharing in their legacies. Countless people, particularly kids, face fear and abuse every day because of their sexual orientation.

Is Tim Cook unaware of the fact that homosexuality, and indeed any sexual act “against the order of nature” (i.e., anything that isn’t penis in vagina), is a crime in India? I suspect he knows this. And I also suspect that it makes no difference, because money conquers all in the world that the CEOs of major corporations control. So, Cook is allowed to be openly gay and dictate how relevant that is: “Part of social progress is understanding that a person is not defined only by one’s sexuality, race, or gender. I’m an engineer, an uncle, a nature lover, a fitness nut, a son of the South, a sports fanatic, and many other things.”

But laws like Section 377 reduce human beings to their genitals and prescribe strict instructions for what they are to be used for. So, whatever else one might be, if one is not a cisgender heterosexual in India—hell, even if one is and wants to have oral or anal sex—and especially if one is vulnerable and can be easily picked up by the police, one is a criminal. I suppose Cook’s empathy is conditional—as long as it doesn’t interfere with business, he’ll feel it.

We tend to expect those who belong to marginalized or oppressed groups to support causes that are inherently left-wing, like feminism and equal rights for LGBTQ people, but when those people are who they are because of their location within a right-wing system, it should come as no surprise when their version of these social movements seems to fit comfortably within that system. Let Beyoncé identify as a feminist, and let Tim Cook identify as an empathic person who can serve as an example to people who are struggling with their sexual orientation. But remember that they are capitalists. The vast majority of the people buying what they’re selling do not inhabit the world they do and never will.

Change will only come for the rest of us when we dismantle the same system that props them up. So, love Beyoncé’s music, buy an iPhone or iPad, if that’s what you want, but think critically about who your idols are and what they ask of you.